Being "The Friend"

When I was a teenager,  just about every time I went to the mall, boys came up and talked to me. They were always different than the preppy boys I was used to and each time I was a approached a shiver of fear and of excitement would run through me.

Without fail, the boys would then proceed to ask me about my "friend with the red hair". I would stammer, "She has a boyfriend," as I looked down at my penny loafers. The excitement would turn to pure fear as the boy would look at me menacingly, trying to decide if I was lying.

Once a group of them actually chased us through the mall. After which, our interest in visiting that particular mall sharply waned.

I am reminded of this because now there is another male of the species trying to intimidate me, even though he has no interest in me. But this time I am not 15.

Recently I received a Facebook message intimating that my husband was cheating on me. My first inclination was to laugh, because not only would Hot Guy never do that, he doesn't have the time. Or the energy. Or a working  cell phone.

Then I remembered that Hot Guy had told me about a high school friend of his whose high school boyfriend had started stalking her through Facebook. Even though she's married to someone else and they haven't seen each other in 15 years, the ex has become obsessed with her again. To the point where he's been accusing all of her male Facebook friends from high school of sleeping with her.

Which is where Hot Guy comes into it. Apparently the ex thinks Hot Guy and high school friend are having an affair (did I mention that she lives 1200 miles away?) and since trying to intimidate her and Hot Guy wasn't working, he decided to message me and make the accusation.

What's really scary is that after I blocked him he set up a new account and messaged me again. He's freakishly determined to contact me so that he can mess with Hot Guy and thus prove to high school friend how serious he is.

She has threatened legal action and is documenting everything, of course. But that's all so far. I am scared for her, to be perfectly honest. Chasing down the wives of high school friends seems extreme to me.

I replied to the second message with a request to please leave me alone and the threat of legal ramifications if he didn't. But I don't know if that will just piss him off or what. I don't know what he knows about where we live or even if he knows about this blog.

I don't think he would really care, though. It's high school friend he's after. Right? I don't know a lot about stalkers.

You know, I really didn't want to learn to appreciate being just "the friend" this way.