Advertiser (0:00)

You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored Jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com Arts. Just go to Indeed.com Arts right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. If you love to travel, Capital One has a rewards credit card that's perfect for you. With the Capital One Venture X card, earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy. Plus you get premium benefits at a collection of luxury hotels when you book on Capital One Travel. And with Venture X, you get access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. Open up a world of travel possibilities with a Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet?

Storyteller (1:20)

Terms apply.

Advertiser (1:21)

Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details.

Storyteller (1:29)

Back in my high school years, I'd often meet up with a few friends at a local Dunkin Donuts, which was conveniently near a railway that we'd all take to our weed guy's house. My closest friend at the time, Katie, and I usually met up earlier than everyone else just to hang out, order our extra large drinks and hash browns and attempted some hey Mr. Shenanigans to score some tall boys from anyone willing to buy us beer. I'd consider us to be pretty naive and overly nice girls, which never proved to be an issue to either of us until we were nice to the wrong person, that is. Now for a little background of my hometown. I grew up in the forgotten borough of New York City, Staten Island. For those who are unaware, there was and kind of still is a pretty horrendous opioid epidemic. So seeing zombie like civilians strolling the street is fairly common. Because of this, I became pretty good at spotting out someone struggling with heroin and things of the sort. Anyways, on this one day Katie and I met up at Dunkin and sat at our usual booth. We were in the midst of messing around with our phones and being our overly giggly selves when I noticed out of the corner of my eyes someone suddenly stopped outside of the glass door, still smiling I glanced over to see if it was maybe one of our friends and ended up making direct eye contact with a basic Staten island looking guy. I looked away unbothered and carried on. It's just another customer. After the guy got his coffee, he sat directly at the table across from our booth. I chose to ignore the fact that he sat weirdly close and resisted eye contact since that already awkwardly happened, but I guess the motion caught Katie's attention as she looked over her shoulder at the man settling in. She looked back at me, made a face that said uh, okay. And we just giggled and tried to move on. Every now and then I glanced in his direction, mainly just because I liked to be observant of my own surroundings, but also because I kept seeing him scratch at his nose, neck and face in my peripheral vision and I noticed he was bleeding from various little cuts on his body. This was a dead giveaway that he was doing some form of opiate as they tend to get very itchy and scratch until they break skin. A few minutes later the man had asked if one of us had a charger he could borrow. I kindly denied and Katie only had an iPhone charger while the man clearly had an Android phone. This slight exchange was enough for the man to feel invited and he'd continue to make comments for quite some time. Being that this was about four years ago. I don't remember the entire conversation but but I do remember him often asking general questions like if we lived around here, what we do in our free time, and creepy things of the sort. I was pretty vague yet polite in my responses, but Katie was always a bit more enthusiastic in her words, making it pretty easy for this guy to reciprocate and basically join our conversation altogether. And Katie's innocent stupidity. The guy basically found out some of the main train stops we'd get off at to hang out in those areas. He also found out that we would indulge in the devil's lettuce, which only made this guy feel even more inclined. At some point he mentioned how his ex girlfriend got him into some trouble, got him into heroin which he used to sell, serve jail time for, and pretty recently got out. He also mentioned how he's been an ice cream truck driver ever since his release and he told us that he's always driving around the train stops Katie mentioned earlier. He also repeatedly offered to give us rides around in his truck someday with free ice cream as a bribe. Again, we were pretty naive and overly nice girls, Katie more so than I. So one thing led to another and eventually this guy was asking for Katie's social media, which she happily obliged to she's always been really dedicated to expanding her follower account. Throughout this entire exchange, I was mostly just nodding, smiling and laughing here and there, so my remaining silence during the social media exchange went unnoticed. However, once the guy started following Katie on Instagram, he quickly found mine through a tagged photo on her page. I wasn't private at the time, so he immediately started liking and commenting on nearly every one of my pictures. The comments were extremely cringey too, consisting of heart eye and water squirt emojis and things like Damn Ma. Finally, after the longest half hour ever, I urged that we should really be catching our train. Fortunately, the man wasn't persistent after that and we were well on our way with no problem. After some verbal recap of what just happened, I convinced Katie to block him and I did the same. We brushed it off with that I honestly forgot about the strange interaction until about a week later. I was hanging out with some friends at a park near my high school when munchies really made me crave Ralph's Ices, which was just up the block. I ventured off with one other friend and almost made into the store before the sound of an ice cream truck approached from behind us. Completely lost in conversation, my attention was only caught up by the high pitched screeching of the truck's brakes and a somewhat familiar voice. Of course it was him. He shouted out to me, but with Ralphs only a couple feet in front of us, I ignored him and rushed inside with my friend. The guy didn't stick around, being that he was blocking the whole lane on a narrow two way road, but we still called our friend at the park to come pick us up in his car. For the next two weeks, there were about four times this man tried to pick me up in his truck and at this point making me pretty paranoid that I was potentially being stalked. The last time it happened, he was parked directly outside one of the train stops, almost as if he was waiting for me. He again called out to me asking me why I blocked him and saying that he just wanted to be friends. At this point I had enough and I told him to just leave me alone. My dad's a lieutenant. Which was a lie, but slipped out. In my defense, I walked away before he could even respond and ride into the diner that I was meeting my friends at. That night. I saw his truck drive away in the window and I never had an interaction with the ice cream man again. That distinct sound of an Ice cream truck has haunted me ever since. For some context, I had a really crappy childhood. It was terrible, where I don't remember anything from birth all the way to 13 years of age. Everything I know about what happened through those years was from a mixture of sparse memories, things my family has told me about myself, and police reports. One of those things I do remember, however, is this lady named Auntie. No first name, no last name, nothing else contributing to her identity. She was just Auntie. I started seeing her when I was seven years old, sitting in her living room as she typed everything I said down on her laptop. I had no problem with her. I saw her once every month and she seemed gentle enough that I really thought she was someone I could trust. So I did. Seven years later, I'm 14 years old and I admitted to her that I had tried to kill myself numerous times. It was a mixture of multiple different my mother's increasing toxicity, the lack of social interaction at the time, and more importantly, I never moved on from the horrors of my childhood. Now I was 14 years old at the time, and I was able to wonder why these meetings with Auntie never actually seemed to help me. Especially to do with the fact that I begged her to tell me why I constantly wanted to die. I remember on the way to Auntie's house, I had asked my mother if I would ever get the chance to see a different person, maybe get a different sort of help that Auntie clearly couldn't give. I was just hissed at to be quiet. Around that time, the relationship between me and my mother began to crack. My mother became a source of grief to me, and I cried about it during multiple sessions with my auntie. Auntie at the end of these sessions, would try to defend my mother or make me seem like I'm blowing things out of proportion. I tried to come up with my own reasons at the time on why she was not trying to understand things wholly, and I chalked it up to her being empathetic. Maybe being able to explain why my mother was terrible was supposed to help me embrace it in some weird way. And then more things like that seemed to happen. I admit that when I was 16 years old, I was a terrible kid. I went to parties, drank whatever was served, and definitely didn't tell anyone what I was doing. But then Auntie had started to ask very specific questions, especially to the topics mentioned above. I was in shock again. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and I thought that her sudden pinpointing of these things must be from the fact that at this point she'd known me for almost a decade. All the way into a year later, she had started to bring up the parties that I've gone to in these sessions without even bothering to hide behind question. The relationship between me and my mother had almost been completely severed. And the worst part of all, something that still affects me till this day. At the end of each session, Auntie had started to invite me into the room and tell her every single thing I said. It was terrible hearing my own words against my mother explaining the increasing abuse that she's begun to put me through. Said straight to her face as she sat next to me. My grades in school began to drop. My mother forbade me from going out and I was completely isolated. So I tried to kill myself. On my 17th birthday I ran into my mother's room looking for something I could overdose with or just something that could push me to the edge. I remember rummaging through everything until I went into her walk in closet. I had barely gone into her room. In fact, I completely forgot about the fact that she even had one of these in my crazed state. I just remember running into her closet and looking through every crevice. I stumbled upon a suitcase leaning against the wall under the hung up clothes. If I close my eyes, I can still imagine. Didn't look old so that was probably what made me decide to open it up. When I did, all I saw was a crap ton of papers. The surprise of seeing so much snapped me out of the state I was in. And I recall sitting cross legged on the floor and wondering what the hell these papers were. After a while of reading, I realized that these were transcripts of Auntie and I's sessions, literally dating all the way back to some of the first sessions that I did. I remember feeling sick, feeling so so sick. I at least had enough sense to steal a few of the earlier papers to make it less noticeable. Reading through those transcripts just filled me up with more and more bitter questions and I decided that night that I would kill myself after what I figured out what was going on. I was on a time crunch, feeling stressed because I really only had a year left to figure out what the hell was going on before I was faced with the looming threat of being kicked out. As soon as I turned 18, I started to pay way more attention in our sessions, looking around her house whenever I got the chance to, looking for some indicators that could tell me who the psychologist really was. I started asking my mother more and more questions about Auntie and she kept deflecting repeating the same. She was a psychologist. That's until I did something that literally almost ruined the rest of my life. I decided to steal my mother's phone. It seems like a small thing now, but then it was really life or death. My mother was in the shower and I had already packed all of the stuff that I needed to be out for a few hours, maybe even for a few nights somewhere. As soon as I heard the door lock, I swiped my mother's phone and bolted out of the house. I didn't even look down at the damn thing until I was on the bus. I remember looking through my mother's messages first, and I knew that I found Dante when I stumbled across an unfamiliar name. Even better, when the messages clearly showed. When my mother booked the appointments, I scrolled up for a while, enough for the bus to get me to a safe place. But even as I walked off the bus and years of texts were read, nothing incriminating had showed itself. I then looked through my mother's call logs and I saw the fact that they call extremely often. I wasn't an idiot. Whatever was really going on was happening on calls instead of messages, which was smart. I'll give credit where credit is due. But it still didn't get me anything. I found a place to sit on the side of the road and continued my search. I looked through my mother's social media, and when I tried searching up Auntie's name, nothing came up. I genuinely felt all hope leave my body right then. And sometimes now, I swear I can still feel the same sick feeling as I felt then. I almost gave up. Every day I thanked myself for mindlessly swiping through my mother's followers because I found her. Her account didn't have her real name, some weird fake one. But when I clicked on her profile, it was most definitely her. She posted some photos with some of my mother's friends and I scrolled for a while down her page until I then saw a photo that had herself and my mother years ago. They have literally been friends even before I was born. I felt sick, betrayed, and a bit relieved that I knew now what the hell was going on. Why my mother had transcripts, why Auntie didn't think twice before telling my mother every single thing I said, why she defended her. I didn't even bother to find a place to stay that night. I just went back home. I got beat black and blue for doing something that didn't deserve any forgiveness. It didn't hurt at all. Compared to what I found out earlier that Day. All I asked my mother that night is who is Auntie Roule? And she couldn't even answer that. A few years later, I was in my first year of university. I had the lucky chance to move out of my mother's house as soon as I got the chance to, with an old friend taking pity on me and allowing me to stay with him since we applied with the same university. He's one of my best friends now. What finally gave me closure in some bittersweet way? Clearing out my Instagram. I deleted people that I didn't care about or didn't know. My heart dropped when I saw a familiar username in my followers. I didn't think about it at all when I searched the username in the search bar and when it came up with Auntie's Facebook account. This psycho had been following me for God knows how long on my Instagram and suddenly everything that didn't click finally made sense. The sudden precise questions why my mother suddenly decided to isolate me from my friends. It didn't even say psychologist or anything of the sort in her freaking bio. Tell me why it said chemistry teacher with over 20 years f my life. I admit that I cried like a baby that night because it had taken me years for me to finally understand why two of my main female models seemed to despise me. Still, to this day I mourn the fact that most of my early adult years are being used to heal from everything in my childhood instead of going out with newly made friends and giving my all to university. It sucks. Everyone who hears my life story agrees on the fact that there's something wrong with them. I just wished I knew that sooner. Two days ago I had my first session with a real psychologist. Trust me, I did my research. I felt almost ashamed when I blurted out the reason why I'm sitting in this guy's chair, but he just smiled at me and told me we had a lot of work to do. Yeah, we do. I decided to post about my experience just in the slight chance anyone had a similar experience with therapy becoming messed up or they feel like they've been living in a hole their entire life. I promise you guys it gets better with a little luck and surrounding yourself with the right people at least. This happened a few years ago and I've never told anyone about it. I don't know why I'm talking about it here now, but it's been on my mind again and I just need to get it out. At the time, I lived pretty far out in the country, just me and my dog. No close neighbors. And it was usually really quiet. I liked it that way. One night I woke up in the middle of the night to the motion sensor light going off outside. Now, at first I thought it was just an animal. Maybe a deer or something. But when I looked out the window, I saw a man standing at the end of my driveway. He wasn't moving, just standing there, facing my house. I don't know why, but I froze. I just stood there staring at him. And he didn't move at all. The light went off after a while, and then everything just went back to being dark and quiet. I didn't sleep much after that. The next night it happened again. The light came on and there he was. Same spot, same stillness. Just standing there, staring at the house. By this point, I was starting to get really freaked out. I called the sheriff's department and they sent someone to check it out. But by the time they got there, he was already gone. The deputy told me that it was probably just some drunk guy or someone passing through. And I that I shouldn't worry unless he started coming closer. That didn't really make me feel any better. But I tried to move on. This went on for about a week. Every night, like clockwork. I'd wake up and see him standing there at the end of my driveway. It was always the same. He never moved, never said anything. Just stood there, staring at my house. It got to the point where I'd started closing the blinds at night. But I still felt like I could feel him out there. And then, just like that, it stopped. I never saw him again after that week. No explanation, no reason. It just ended. I've never told anyone about this before. It's probably not a big deal, but it's something that's just stuck with me. I just wanted to write it out. This begins back when I was 15. I'm 18 now. I work in a five star Michelin restaurant. As a waitress in a sweet little area, we usually don't get anyone with bad intentions. Usually it's just snobs. Easter Sunday of 2022, one of the busiest days of the year. A man who will be known as Easterman came in looking for a table for wine. He was in a three piece suit with a carton of chicken eggs. He was sitting in my section, so I went over to get a drink and food order. Once I got his order, he kept me talking, asking about my education, what I was doing in school, what my plans for the future were, what my hobbies were, my name, etcetera. Etc. Just a little too much to be polite. But I let it slide. I was busy, tired and didn't want any trouble. Eventually he left for the day and I thought that was that. Oh, I was wrong. For the next couple of months he would come in two, three days. Every week he got more confident, attempting to flirt with me, ask me to come out with him after work, etc. However, things got worse when one shift I was walking him to his table and he slid his hands down my back and over my butt. I turned around and I politely told him to not touch me and to not push my boundaries as I was only 15 and he knew that I didn't serve him that day. A week later he came in and I refused to serve him. Once again my manager took over his table. Yet when everyone was on break and it was only me on the floor, he came inside and came up behind me, bringing his hands down my arms. I was shaken up, but politely once again told him not to touch me. I didn't hear from him again then until the next Easter in 2023. Last Easter, things got worse. He showed up again. The usual shenanigans. Yet my managers were prepped this year, not allowing me to go within the vicinity of him, keeping me safe. This was really only useful inside of work. I walked through the town center to get to work and it's about a 25 minute walk from the train station. As I walked to work one day, he saw me in his car and followed me into work. I immediately told my managers who yet again told me to stay away from him. A week after that, I was having coffee before work, about a 15 minute walk away from my job. And what do you know? Guess who sees me and follows me on foot to work? I again tell my managers who keep me away from him again. Yet that day was different. He asked my managers for me, saying that he knew I was there because he'd seen me. Last year, 2024. I took a lot of holidays around Easter time and I was off a lot for exams. Supposedly he came in a few times, asked for me and didn't come in much when I wasn't anywhere to be seen. He hasn't come in since this happened just this past weekend and I still don't fully have the words for just how creeped out I am. My boyfriend and I had planned out a quiet anniversary trip to a remote Airbnb outside Columbia Falls, Montana. It was one of those sleek modern cabins built high on stilts, surrounded by nothing but trees in Every direction. No blinds, no neighbors, and no cell service for about 45 minutes in any direction. The listing was beautiful, with big glass windows, a beautiful forest. Total seclusion, but the kind of seclusion that feels thrilling until night falls. We spent the day exploring whitefish and got to the Airbnb that evening. The directions on Google Maps only got us so far. We had to drive another 45 minutes down a narrow dirt road just to reach it. Zero signal. Nothing but forestry. When we arrived, something already felt off. The cabin was clean, but not in a finished way. There were towels half folded on the bathroom counter, almost like the cleaner stopped mid task. Some random sunglasses were lying outside near the door, and there were scratch marks on the black frame of the glass door leading out to the deck. I assumed it was just from a dog at first, but the angle of them felt off. Still, we were there to celebrate. We cooked dinner, listened to music, danced, and joked around with one another. At one point, we took the truck for a spin down the back road and called out for Bigfoot like idiots. Pure vacation mode. When we returned to the Airbnb, I asked my boyfriend for the key code to get in. He casually said, 1289. I gave him a look as if to say, um, maybe don't say that out loud, and he caught on. Then he said, oh, you know what? Actually, I think it's 3572. Like a joke, but just to throw something else out there. We laughed it off and then went back inside. We hung out a bit more and then finally settled into bed around 2am that's when I heard it. There was the sound of multiple beep sounds and then a pause and then more sounds. If you've ever used one of those digital deadbolt locks, you know that sound, that specific sound it makes when someone enters a code and presses the check mark but gets it wrong? That's what I was hearing. Someone was outside trying the keypad. And they did this twice. I then said softly, babe, I think there's someone at the door. He jumped up. I told him, do not go out there. That's how people die in scary movies. We stayed up for hours, whispering, barely moving knives by our bedside. I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying the sound in my head over and over again of those electronic beeps. Whoever it was wasn't just trying their luck. They were trying a code they thought was correct. That's when it hit me. The faint code that he said out loud. 3572. That's what they tried. Not the Real one that my boyfriend said. At first someone was out there, close enough to hear us, and they tried the code that we set as a joke. So many things make sense now. The half done towels, the sunglasses, the scratches. That feeling I got when we pulled up, like someone had just left or had never really left at all. I honestly believe we were being watched from the moment we arrived. And I truly think that my boyfriend accidentally saved us when he said the fake code out loud. It happened in a small Russian village sometime around 2008 or 2009, when I was about 8. The kind of place where everyone knew each other. Or at least pretended to. It was late, about 10pm but warm. The street lights bathed the road in a dull orange glow. Everything was quiet except for the hum of our bike tires on the pavement. I was with a few kids that I sort of knew. Not really friends, just familiar faces. We weren't talking, just writing, letting the night stretch on. Then he had stepped out of the dark. I recognized him. In Stelae everyone did. Some drunk who lived in the village, always lurking around, always wasted. I had never spoken to him, never intended to. But now he was right in front of me. Before I could even process what was happening, he grabbed me. The smell hit me first. Booze, sweat, and something sour. His grip was tight, fingers digging into my arm. Then, in a slow, slurred voice, he spoke. Where are my cigarettes? I had no idea what he was talking about. I wasn't carrying anything. I didn't even smoke. I stammered out the first thing that came to my mind. I don't know. His grip tightened. His breath reeked as he leaned in closer. Where are my cigarettes? Panic set in. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let go. My voice cracked as I repeated myself. I don't know. It was like he didn't even hear me. His voice was slower this time, almost a growl. Where are my cigarettes? That's when I lost it. I screamed. A full, terrified, gut wrenching scream. Not words, just pure, uncontrollable fear. And that's when they ran. Every single kid who was with me bolted the second I screamed. There was even a 16 year old among them. Bigger, older and stronger than me. But he ran too. No hesitation, no looking back. Just gone. And that's when it really hit me. I was alone. Maybe that was what saved me. Because as soon as I started jittering and screaming, the drunk lost interest. His grip loosened. Maybe he thought I was having a seizure or something. I didn't care. The second I felt his finger slip. I bolted Home was in four, just a house at the end of a long driveway leading straight to the main road where we had been riding. I sprinted down the driveway, my heart slamming against my ribs, and I crashed through the door. I couldn't even form proper sentences, just panicked shouting words, stumbling over each other as I tried to explain. My grandma and grandpa turned to me, alarmed. But before I could even finish, my grandma glanced out the window just in time to see him. He was still there, still coming toward the house. She didn't hesitate. She grabbed a wooden stick from behind the door and stormed outside, moving faster than I'd ever seen her. She hadn't seen what had happened, but she had heard me. She saw him chasing after me. That was enough. The second she reached him, she unleashed hell. She didn't just yell, she screamed, calling him every name under the sun. And then she had started swinging hard. Each hit landed with a sickening thud. The guy stumbled back, too drunk to fully process what was happening, mumbling something as he tried to shield himself. She didn't stop until he finally turned and disappeared into the dark. A week later I saw him again, still drunk, still stumbling around in the village. He looked right past me, like I wasn't even there. This happened about a year ago. I was on Grindr, looking for either fun dates or new friendships. For those of you unfamiliar with Grindr, it's a social media app that is designed primarily for gay men and many people use it to hook up with other men as well. One day I was scrolling and I received a new message from a guy who we'll call Brian. I took a look at some of his pictures, read his bio, and decided that I was interested in him. We had started messaging back and forth and he seemed to be a really kind, charismatic guy who really knew how to hold a conversation. Something that is very hard to come by on the app. A few days went by and we eventually exchanged numbers. He seemed nice enough and I wanted to see if he was as great in person as he was over text message, so I asked him if he wanted to go on a date with me. He very happily agreed, so I scheduled a date with him. The plan was that I was going to drive to his place, pick him up, and we'd grab some lattes at my favorite local coffee shop. It was around 6pm and I sent him a text message to tell him that I was leaving my house, to which he responded with a quaint I can't wait to meet you. I smiled at his supposed kindness Then, in the middle of driving to his house, I received a phone call from him. So I picked up and the conversation went like. Hey, Brian, what's up? Hey, quick change of plans. I'm feeling tired and I would rather not go out. Would you be okay with just staying in my place? We can watch some shows and order some takeout. I mean, that's not really what I had in mind. I like to go out and do things on the first date. Oh, don't be such a buzzkill. Just come over. I won't show you a bad time. As he spoke on the phone, I got a really strange feeling in my gut. Like something was wrong about how he talked to me before I met him. I imagined his voice and inflections to sound a lot more light hearted because the way we texted was very whimsical and fun. But over the phone, he talked as if he was in a hurry, perhaps slightly frantic. However, despite my gut feeling, I decided that I would accept his offer. Maybe he was just tired or stressed from the workday. I pulled into his driveway and he greeted me at his door. He looked like his picture and he was very handsome. He was wearing fashionable glasses and his dark straight hair contrasted with his light skin. When I go inside, I was greeted by one of his roommates who was playing Dark Souls in the living room. I wanted to be polite, so I approached the roommate and introduced myself. I didn't want to come off as rude to Brian in case this date ended up going really well. While I'm talking to his roommate, Brian calls my name and beckons me to walk inside his bedroom. I politely excuse myself and follow Brian into his room. When I walked inside, I saw something straight out of a freaking no sleep horror story, only this was real and right in front of me. There were candles lit all around and when I got a closer look, I noticed that there were several altars scattered across the room. Effigies of ancient looking figures, animal bones, jars with unidentifiable liquids inside, some sort of dagger next to a cat's skull, the whole shebang. I don't remember all the altars, but I do remember a couple. One of them was on the floor and there was a glass container that held some kind of yellow liquid with animal skull surrounding the container. Another altar was on the shelf next to his bed and this one had a few candles surrounding some kind of doll with its eyes soon shut and its hands missing. Now that one was creepy and it was super bizarre. A part of me was telling myself to nope, the Hell out of there immediately. But I thought that maybe I was overreacting to someone's religious choices. I don't know much about cult religions, so I didn't want to assume that this guy had any kind of malicious intentions. Plus, I can be a little reactive at times. So I decided to stay and go along with the ride. When we walked into his room, I wanted to calm my nerves and because I have a really curious mind, I decided to ask Brian about what these alters were. He told me that he'd tell me about them later. A weird response, but again I brushed it off my shoulders, thinking that he just might be a bit eccentric. I can be a little weird too, so I tried to be empathetic and understanding. Then I point to one of the altars and ask about it. He frowns at me and scowls. Don't touch that. His voice startled me. His intense inflections paired with his angry expression sent alumps straight to my throat and I felt threatened. I was almost 4ft away from the altar, not even close to touching it, and yet he just yelled at me like a father yelling at his kid to stop messing around at the church. I was confused and thinking that I had done something wrong. I apologized in the blink of an eye. His scowl turned into a smile and he kindly invited me to sit with him to watch a show. What really weirded me out was the fact that his smile looked and felt genuine. He had just gotten angry, but all of a sudden he didn't care and served me up a really kind disposition. I was unsure of how to process what had just happened, so I just decided to sit down with him. He seemed to be acting pretty normal once this ordeal happened and we both started to talk about ourselves. After some time he became really sweet and soft spoken, similar to how he was over text message and we were able to share some stories about our lives. It was starting to feel like an actual first date and my nerves subsided a bit. I was probably just overthinking everything else. He then turns on his TV show. Now mind you, I was still a little freaked out by his random outburst, so I was on guard. So I offered to invite his roommate to come and hang out with us. Brian's roommate seemed like any old average Joe when I met him and I just wanted someone else to be there to act as a buffer. I wanted to see how he would act around other people. But when I gave him my idea, he immediately shut me down and his personality switched from being easygoing, distressed and angry. He started cussing out his roommate to me, making it clear that he absolutely hated him. The switch was so jarring, I started to panic again. Then he changed the subject and started to talk about me. He said that he found me really attractive and in the process, his fingers started to graze my thighs. I needed a second to collect myself though, so I excused myself to get some water. When I stood up, he immediately slapped my ass and told me not to take too long. I walked out and closed the door behind me and started to make my way for the kitchen. I was hoping to chat with his roommate on the way and see if I could ask him about Brian, but he was asleep on the living room couch, so I just made a beeline to the cabinets in search of a cup. I thought about walking out and driving home because I didn't appreciate his sudden touchiness. But I started getting paranoid. He had all those alters and he didn't tell me what the altars were for. I've seen some horror films about the occult and I truly had no idea what this guy was capable of. Yeah, he was sweet at times, but he was showing me some really aggressive behavior. Who's to say that this guy is unable to put some kind of voodoo curse on me? Dramatic, I know, but you can never really be too sure. So I grab my water and cautiously head back to his room. When I walked back inside, I saw him sitting on the couch with his legs crisscrossed and his eyes closed. When I approached him, I saw his mouth moving, but I didn't hear anything coming from it. Weirded out by this, I called his name, but he didn't respond. Strange. I called his name a second time and he opened his eyes and crossed his legs and then just went back to watching the TV without at all addressing what he was doing. What the hell is going on here? I was getting really worried, but I did what I could to keep my cool. I didn't want to do anything to upset him or make him lose his cool. I sat next to him on the couch and we started talking. Once again, he was completely normal. Unnervingly normal. It was like I was in the room with a real life Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Except Brian was able to switch between them seamlessly. I needed to do something, but what the hell was I supposed to do? I mean, I couldn't call him out because he might lash out at me in some malicious way. But I also didn't want to stay because he was freaking me the hell out. I just stayed and tried to devise some kind of plan to get out of there without making him angry. At some point, he gets up to grab his phone and I thought I would try dishing out the same kind of grab that he did me earlier. And I grabbed his butt like he did mine when I went to get water. Maybe it would release the tension that I was feeling. Maybe he'd like it and make him less aggressive. Regardless, I wanted to try something. I made my move and gave him a cheeky ass grab. Immediately he turned around, swatted my hand away and lunged at me. He had his hand curled up in a fist and he flung it towards my face. His fist was inches away from making a connection with my right cheek. But he stopped mid punch. In that moment, I saw that his eyes were wide open and his facial expression was cold and emotionless. He was right in my face. My heart was beating so fast that I felt like I was seconds away from an aneurysm. He was looking directly at me and my eyes stared back. At that moment, I felt like the prey to his predator. Then he uncurled his fists, put his icy hands on both sides of my face and started to squeeze. You're just so cute. He then pulled me in and forced a kiss. I absolutely didn't want to kiss him, but I was paralyzed and I couldn't will myself to push him away. His words were patronizing, sort of like he was talking to a dog. And it felt even more like this because he had just scrunched my face against his. I felt disgusting kissing someone who had almost punched me in the face. But there was nothing I could do at that moment. Again, I didn't want to risk pissing him off. He slowly pulled away, gave me another sweet smile and sat down, pretending that nothing had just happened. Just started watching the tv. Yep, I'm over this completely. His behavior was becoming more erratic and more unpredictable. His room was freaking creepy as crap. He clearly had associations with the occult and frankly, he was scaring me. I eventually decided that I'd rather deal with the voodoo looking alters later on than stay in his house and have to put up with the immediate danger. So I snouted myself out of my anxiety induced trance, stood up and I told him that I was starting to get sick and that I wanted to go home. He got angry and he tried to convince me to stay the night, but I gathered my courage and insisted that it was time for me to leave. He begrudgingly let me, but it was clear that my decision pissed him off. I didn't care anymore. I said my goodbyes and told him that I'd text him later, thinking yeah, screw that to myself. While doing so I got in my car and drove home shaking and sweating. I really felt relieved to get out of there but nervous that he might try to do something. The uncertainty of it all is what truly shakes me up, but thankfully no actual harm came to me. Who knows what would have happened if I had stayed though. I blocked Brian's number as well as his Grindr profile and even now I keep my own Grindr pictures private. I haven't heard from him since, but I still fear that he's going to try and come after me somehow. Honestly, I can be a paranoid person, but I knew this was a little too far I had this friend. Being an awkward teenager in a small town, it was really hard for me to make friends. At least any with the same interests as me. We had a new student and most people wanted to be his friend. He was a decently attractive guy, artsy and pretty introverted. Most of the girls were trying to hit on him, but I just wanted to be his friend. He never really talked to anyone, but I never thought of that as weird or anything. I mean most teenagers are like that. Anyways, we ended up being friends. This led me to do some risky things for about two years from going places we shouldn't be going, shoplifting substances and other stupid things. He was all into this spooky like stuff from animations, music, etc. I thought it was kinda cool. All dark and mysterious, meant to be all ominous. He kept journals of random things, nothing I was allowed to see. He had a few drawings of random cult like figures saying that he wanted to create his own fake cult. After a while I figured out that he wasn't in the right headspace. From being in and out of mental health specialists to distant parents. I was also a teen who struggled. But something definitely changed. Begging me to go five hours out of town at 3am Trying to get me to sneak out with him even after I said no. How it would be back by morning just getting more and more reckless. Also, one time we went to an abandoned shed. Well, it definitely wasn't abandoned. We found pictures of dead animals and other hunting gear. He seemed a little too fascinated and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. That was probably a point when things got weird. He would start to ask me to come collect dead animals off the street with him. I was not down with that though. I tried to keep an open mind. Maybe it was taxidermy I asked myself. After a while, I had a feeling that it wasn't, and if it was, it was a little excessive. One day I found multiple bleach buckets of dead animals that had been there for weeks on end. It smelled bad, it was gross and frankly, terrifying. I didn't speak to him again after that. Later on he ended up asking to be friends again, and I said no. After that. I've only heard of him going to a mental hospital. That's all I know of him thus far, and I want to keep it that way.