Hi Sleepy,

Thanks for telling your story. I'm glad you told it to us. You know, I'm picking up that even though you are glad that this guy isn't going to be around to bug you anymore, you are still being hard on yourself for your role in what happened. Is that right? It's not your fault. Standing up for yourself was what you needed to do, and you have a right to stand up for yourself. You don't have to put up with unwanted attention from anybody. You told him to stop violating your space, and he wouldn't stop. Some people just can't take a hint, even if you gift wrap it! I don't think that you did anything wrong.

This reminds me of a guy at my high school who followed me around. That kind of guy seems to go for girls who are vulnerable, don't they? At first I was nice to him, since I didn't really have friends either, and I knew what that was like, and it was rather nice to be wanted. But he quickly became too much to handle. He followed me around all the time, and I ran away from him and he still found me, and even followed me into the girl's bathroom! He knew that I didn't want to be followed like that too. He wasn't even supposed to be at my school because he lived in the area for another one, and he tormented me about being told that he was supposed to go to the other school, but that he refused and got a special permit to stay at the school where we were, and he told me about that just to torment me. Once on a trip, I had a tape of music that my dad had recorded for me, and he asked if he could listen to it, so I let him borrow it. I fell asleep, and he insisted that he had given my tape back to me while I was asleep, but it was nowhere around. He just decided to keep it and lie, obviously. Even pretended to help look for it all over the bus! It wouldn't have been a big deal except that I never did get my dad to record that music for me again. My dad blamed me for losing it. Well, I guess I went off on a tangent there. But your story reminds me so much of this guy I knew. And I wish that I had been able to stand up for myself the way that you did.

((((((((((hugs back)))))))))))) - if you want them Thanks for the hugs you gave us.