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Stalked at the mall
So today I was at the mall by my place shopping for Christmas presents or at least looking for ideas and since I use my phone for most transaction I had to charge it up a little bit... Anyways a guy came and sat down which was fine but when I got up and left he started following me which at first I did not care until it got really weird. I ended up going into the bathroom to wash my hands before going and buying food and he follows me and uses the sink right beside me and continuously looks over at me to see if I was done or not or something. I dried my hands and left the bathroom and he immediately left without drying his hands... Anyways I ducked into the first store to my right (which was the Bay) and he followed me in nearly following my path through the store. By this point I took out my phone and started to record video behind me and attempt to snap as many pictures as I could. Anyways I left the store and went walking down the store hallway and he followed the exact same path as me. So I went to the far end escalators because they were off (essentially stairs) which made it crowded so I could put some buffer space between this guy and myself. Anyways once down on the first floor I start walking and he walks around (on the otherside of the hallway) watching me almost the entire time. He ended up bumping into someone and looked forward and after that I turned around and hid in a small crowd of people and he started looking around then continued to walk away. By this point I went looking for the mall security before he started following me again. This time I decided to go to one of the charging booths that was nearly full and I sat down and he just stood there the entire time... After a spot opened up he sat down and I got up and went and basically ran as soon as I got outside and got on the first bus I could get to before going home. No I don't take drugs and I showed others the video and they think I should go to the cops but either way... its ** terrifying... and I am a guy...
I'm surprised to see fear being avoided on this site. Fear is just a measurement of "how unknown" a thought we have is. So the cure for fear is knowledge and the way to gain knowledge is logic, which is what courage is.
Did you ask the guy following you why he seemed to be following you? That's the logical thing to do. You got afraid because of the unknown and the fear feelings were telling you that the situation was unknown. So the remedy is to make things known.
"Excuse me, but every time I look around I see you as though you're following me. Can I help you?"
If he was playing a game, specifically to make people behave crazily with fear for no reason, which my friends and I used to do as teens, we'd follow people on the car we were driving around in to try to get them to go into a panic for no reason at all, and that was the game (for us).
Anyone who stopped and got out of their car to ask us if why we were following them, ruined the game completely! :) We freaked out and ran away ourselves if someone stopped and got out to confront us.
Fear is nothing anyone should be allowing to control them. It doesn't know anything. Fear must always be questioned. All it's ever telling us is that we don't know something, so the solution is to know, is knowledge, which we gain with logic.
I actually agree with your friends: tell the cops. You don't necessarily need to file any charges on the guy, but they need to know -- likewise, mall security -- so they can be on the lookout for this guy. The next person he tracks that way may not be as smart (or as lucky) as you. Good work!