But if you haven’t sent me an email in the past twenty-four hours, you can relax.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And you are crazier than a shit-house rat.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I feel uncomfortable, annoyed, and occasionally uneasy about my actual safety.\u00a0 I feel\u00a0somewhat relieved\u00a0that you only approach me through my work contacts, and also\u00a0angry 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.<\/p>\n
Here, Creepy, is a synopsis of what has happened between you and me over the past two years:<\/p>\n
You were a student in my summer Comp I class, where we had the standard classroom dynamic:\u00a0 I was the professor and you were a motivated-but-mostly-adequate student.\u00a0 For the first few weeks, everything was normal.\u00a0 Somewhere around the fourth week, though, you showed up to class one day with a walking cane.\u00a0 You seemed subdued, distracted.\u00a0 You looked tired.\u00a0 After class, I asked after your health–something I do with any student who seems ill or otherwise in distress.\u00a0 You told me that you have Multiple Sclerosis, and that you were having a bad spell.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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:\u00a0 Would I be willing to help you even if you weren’t my student?\u00a0 I said sure, I often hear from former students, even those who have moved on from our university.\u00a0 Good luck in your new endeavor!<\/p>\n
You took the final exam, part of which was an essay.\u00a0 You submitted it on time, and that was that, or so I thought.<\/p>\n
You emailed me to say you had enjoyed the class, and thanked me for my understanding about your illness.<\/p>\n
I received another email from you the following day;\u00a0its subject was something like “I used a word incorrectly in my essay.”<\/p>\n
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\u00a0means.”\u00a0 “Give it whatever grade you think best.”\u00a0 “I apologize if it seemed I was giving you permission to give my work a grade.”\u00a0 “I hope you aren’t mad at me about all these emails.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
And then this:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
One day, you came to see me at the office, to tell me that you hoped you hadn’t confided too much in me.\u00a0 You felt embarrassed that you had addressed me as a friend (you referred to me in your email as\u00a0a mentor), and said that you knew that I was only your former teacher, nothing more.\u00a0 I was ready.\u00a0 I’d called the Counseling office and asked one of the counselors there what I should do about your continuing emails and escalating familiarity.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Internally, I was shrieking, “GET HELP GET HELP GET HELP GET HELP and leave me out of it!”\u00a0 You thanked me for the advice, and said you would go to counseling.<\/p>\n
From July to September of that year, you emailed me pretty much every week.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Your tone in these missives ranged from polite and chatty to morose and self-pitying to angry and insulted.\u00a0 You begged me to let you be my friend, and then got angry that I didn’t respond to your messages.\u00a0 You said I reminded you of your late grandmother and that you loved me.\u00a0 You told me good-bye (a relief) and then “nevermind good-bye.”\u00a0\u00a0You said you were getting help.\u00a0 Clearly, you were lying.<\/p>\n
I didn’t hear from you again until March of the next year.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was for me, anyway.\u00a0 But then came March, and another spate of emails. This time, you started calling me on the phone, as well.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Perhaps I and my colleagues weren’t really as safe as we thought.\u00a0 I contacted campus police.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I know this is probably upsetting to you.\u00a0 I know you may be thinking, “I never meant to scare you, MB, surely you know I’d never hurt you.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But you need to know that your behavior is not normal, Creepy.\u00a0 If someone never returns one email\u00a0 from you in over a year–much less over two years–that person probably doesn’t want to be friends with you.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It’s because you scare the shit out of me.\u00a0 Your thinking is not right.\u00a0 You’re absolutely cracked.\u00a0 Am I getting through to you now?\u00a0 Whatever you think our relationship is, the truth is you are stalking me. \u00a0Please stop thinking about me.\u00a0 Please stop calling and emailing.<\/p>\n
Because your latest emails demonstrate a new depth of unreality.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s subject line:\u00a0 “was that you that came over last night?”<\/p>\n
And today:\u00a0 “You are just the most wonderful person I’ve ever met to come check on me. … I want so badly to love like you.\u00a0 Is there anyway you can\u00a0teach me?”<\/p>\n
Listen, Creepy, and listen good.\u00a0 NO.\u00a0 To both questions.\u00a0 These emails, and your continued (failed) attempts to evoke a response from me\/relationship with me, are proof that you know nothing about me.\u00a0 I would never drive a minivan.\u00a0 I am not the most wonderful person anyone has ever met, and I don’t have “love for everybody.”\u00a0 I don’t wish badness for most people, and I don’t even wish badness for you.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I won’t be replying to your emails, either.<\/p>\n
I will be forwarding them to the campus police, though.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
But if you haven’t sent me an email in the past twenty-four hours, you can relax.\u00a0 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 … Continue reading