When I was 23, I met a man on Tinder. You know, the usual way. He had a nice smile, was 25, and shared an interest in comic books; so I agreed to go get coffee with him. The date was unremarkable. I was bored halfway through, my coffee was the best part. But he was nice enough. We finished it up and I prepared never to see this man again.
But if that was the case, I wouldn’t be here telling you about it.
You see, to me the date was unremarkable. Vaguely boring. Not worth a repeat.
Mark, my Tinder date, disagreed.
I responded to him asking me out again by letting him down easy. I told him that I didn’t think we had a lot in common, thanked him for asking, but explained I wasn’t interested. I responded to the next 10 date requests the same way. And then, on a Tuesday morning in March, I woke up to 78 messages from this man. They got increasingly unhinged. I asked him to stop texting me and that’s when the calls started.
I asked the police about a restraining order. I had to actually go down to the station to talk to them because he wouldn’t stop calling. I had 115 missed calls at that point. The nice police officer suggested I just block him which was something I hadn’t actually thought about doing I was so upset.
Mark started physically stalking me after that. I think he quit his job, not that I asked him. But he was everywhere. He was at the grocery store, he was outside my job when I went in and when I came back out. Any time I looked out of my apartment window, he was there in his car. Staring at me. I stopped going out because I didn’t want to run into him. I kept my curtains drawn. I kept my door locked at all times and slept with a baseball bat under my pillow in case he ever tried to get in.
When I went back to the police, they agreed that they would talk to him. It helped for all of a week. After that, it was two years of me trying to be taken seriously. He never hurt me, never touched me. Never even talked to me after I blocked his number. But he was everywhere. I flew home to see my parents and Mark was at the gas station I stopped at. And then finally, finally we were finally going to go to court, get a restraining order. On the day of the hearing, Mark died.
I didn’t do it. Neither did he. He was in a car accident that was tragically fatal.
At first, I thought that things would be better. I know it’s horrible of me to say, I can barely even admit it to myself. But I thought I was finally free. And then I saw Mark in my apartment. He’s haunting me and I don’t know what to do!
Is there a way to get a ghost restraining order? I’ve tried moving apartments, but he’s definitely latched on to me and not the place. I had just unpacked my last box when he appeared. Sitting on my sofa and grinning at me.
I asked him to leave, and he laughed at me. Told me no. He doesn’t normally speak to me. He follows me everywhere, always right next to me no matter what I’m doing. I don’t know what to do.
I didn’t even believe in ghosts before this.
If anyone has any suggestions, please tell me!