But if you haven’t sent me an email in the past twenty-four hours, you can relax. You can relax, too, if you did send me an email but it didn’t contain a crazy, all-in-your-head reference to a middle-of-the-night visit from me. If you did send me an email apologizing for not answering the door when I came by to check on you last night, this song is about you. And you are crazier than a shit-house rat. Frankly, Creepy, despite the fact that all of your emails and letters and voice mails (oh, my) are intended to be flattering and loving, I do not feel flattered or loved as a result of receiving them. I feel uncomfortable, annoyed, and occasionally uneasy about my actual safety. I feel somewhat relieved that you only approach me through my work contacts, and also angry that I must be grateful for a small favor from someone who so relentlessly tries to insinuate herself into my life despite the fact that I have not replied to a single letter, email, or voice mail in two years.
Here, Creepy, is a synopsis of what has happened between you and me over the past two years:
You were a student in my summer Comp I class, where we had the standard classroom dynamic: I was the professor and you were a motivated-but-mostly-adequate student. For the first few weeks, everything was normal. Somewhere around the fourth week, though, you showed up to class one day with a walking cane. You seemed subdued, distracted. You looked tired. After class, I asked after your health–something I do with any student who seems ill or otherwise in distress. You told me that you have Multiple Sclerosis, and that you were having a bad spell. I said that I hoped you would be able to complete our course and that if you needed help from me in the way of flexible deadlines or extended time on the final exam, I would help as far as I could so that your illness would not prevent you from being successful in the class.
A couple of times that week, you came by my office to ask for guidance on some vague question, which I gave as best I could. Toward the end of the last week of our class, you told me that you were considering transferring to another school, and asked if you could email me occasionally if you had school-related questions: Would I be willing to help you even if you weren’t my student? I said sure, I often hear from former students, even those who have moved on from our university. Good luck in your new endeavor!
You took the final exam, part of which was an essay. You submitted it on time, and that was that, or so I thought.
You emailed me to say you had enjoyed the class, and thanked me for my understanding about your illness.
I received another email from you the following day; its subject was something like “I used a word incorrectly in my essay.”
I received a total of five emails from you during that twenty-four-hour period, which can best be summed up as installments in an awkward moment–“I know what the word I misused really means.” “Give it whatever grade you think best.” “I apologize if it seemed I was giving you permission to give my work a grade.” “I hope you aren’t mad at me about all these emails.”
And then this: you announced in the fifth email that in addition to your MS, you were also schizophrenic, a fact you had purposely withheld from the university and from me (although I actually wished you had continued to withhold it) because you were self-conscious about it.
One day, you came to see me at the office, to tell me that you hoped you hadn’t confided too much in me. You felt embarrassed that you had addressed me as a friend (you referred to me in your email as a mentor), and said that you knew that I was only your former teacher, nothing more. I was ready. I’d called the Counseling office and asked one of the counselors there what I should do about your continuing emails and escalating familiarity. I didn’t tell her your name, because FERPA prevents me from sharing information about a student except under certain circumstances, but frankly I was a little concerned about the path your communications with me seemed to be taking, and believed that professional advice was in order. So when you appeared in my office, I suggested to you as gently as I could that you might seek help from a mental-health care provider. Internally, I was shrieking, “GET HELP GET HELP GET HELP GET HELP and leave me out of it!” You thanked me for the advice, and said you would go to counseling.
From July to September of that year, you emailed me pretty much every week. Your messages’ content covered everything from your personal living situation to your concern that I might be suffering from some emotional distress over some unnamed problem. Your tone in these missives ranged from polite and chatty to morose and self-pitying to angry and insulted. You begged me to let you be my friend, and then got angry that I didn’t respond to your messages. You said I reminded you of your late grandmother and that you loved me. You told me good-bye (a relief) and then “nevermind good-bye.” You said you were getting help. Clearly, you were lying.
I didn’t hear from you again until March of the next year. I had thought perhaps you were over it, that you’d found some other thing to dwell on, that out of sight is out of mind. It was for me, anyway. But then came March, and another spate of emails. This time, you started calling me on the phone, as well.
I won’t bore you with a recount of every thing you said to me in those messages, Creepy; I’m sure you kept them all anyway. Suffice to say that at some point during the months of March and April I became concerned that you might actually go completely over the edge. Perhaps I and my colleagues weren’t really as safe as we thought. I contacted campus police.
I know this is probably upsetting to you. I know you may be thinking, “I never meant to scare you, MB, surely you know I’d never hurt you.” You may even be angry with me, thinking that I am ungrateful for all the love and support you’ve been sending my way over the past two years. But you need to know that your behavior is not normal, Creepy. If someone never returns one email from you in over a year–much less over two years–that person probably doesn’t want to be friends with you. And, no, it isn’t because I’m not allowed to be friends with former students, or that I’m worried about how it will look. It’s because you scare the shit out of me. Your thinking is not right. You’re absolutely cracked. Am I getting through to you now? Whatever you think our relationship is, the truth is you are stalking me. Please stop thinking about me. Please stop calling and emailing.
Because your latest emails demonstrate a new depth of unreality.
Thursday’s subject line: “was that you that came over last night?”
And today: “You are just the most wonderful person I’ve ever met to come check on me. … I want so badly to love like you. Is there anyway you can teach me?”
Listen, Creepy, and listen good. NO. To both questions. These emails, and your continued (failed) attempts to evoke a response from me/relationship with me, are proof that you know nothing about me. I would never drive a minivan. I am not the most wonderful person anyone has ever met, and I don’t have “love for everybody.” I don’t wish badness for most people, and I don’t even wish badness for you. But I am not your friend, and I won’t be calling you (even though you mailed me a letter with your every contact point) or coming to see you at work. I won’t be replying to your emails, either.
I will be forwarding them to the campus police, though. Because even though this blog is about you, it’s really about me. I want to be safe from you–from your unwanted communications and from any potential tragedy that might result from your ongoing fascination with the person you think I am.
