Chapter 14 #2
These ones were pretty much no threat at all.
The Green level stalker was just somebody that kept sending you messages over and over again.
They didn’t have access to any of your personal information and seemed like the sort of people that wouldn’t be capable of finding it.
Better still, they probably couldn't be bothered.
These people can be combatted simply by blocking them on the dating app. One flush and they were gone.
However, they were likely to be serial-daters, so it was anticipated that they’d be registered on multiple apps.
If they spotted you on another dating site, they would quite literally have been in like Flynn (whoever Flynn is).
Also, they may have had a different profile picture on each website, so watch out for that.
Be careful of inadvertently initiating contact with them by mistake, then unintentionally making them think that you’re now attracted to them.
Green level stalkers generally kept emailing you until they at least get a ‘Fuck off’ .
Even then, some of them kept coming and coming, which was what our good friend the ‘block’ button was invented for.
Amber level
This lot were generally people that may live or hang around in the same area as you.
Usually, on a dating app, it gave you the option to disclose the general area where you lived.
You can be as specific as you like, though with location-based apps, you didn't have an option to be quite as stingy with such personal information.
Sometimes you’d find yourself in contact with local folks from your area––especially the lazy ones. Some may also inform you that they were going to be looking out for you in the street every day from now on.
I’d also been told that I had been seen in the street, and let me tell you this, they’d been spot on to the finest detail, which had since made me reasonably paranoid.
I remember receiving a message from somebody on a Saturday afternoon whilst I was sitting in my favourite coffee shop somewhere in Europe.
I was routinely checking my matches, which were refreshed pretty much on the minute––every minute, when I got a message saying, ‘Loving the checked shirt!!!’ , with a winky-face emoji bolted on the end of it: The creepiest emoji that an unsolicited potential love interest could type.
I looked around and clocked every male face within a radius of ten metres.
It was a mixture of terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
He wasn’t bad looking, and didn’t seem very threatening from what I could tell from his profile.
I think the thing that alarmed me most, though, was his taste in men's shirts.
It was my least favourite shirt of the time.
In fact, it was my ‘Monday shirt’. Of course, it could have been meant as a sarcastic remark.
There were a few exclamation marks added after the compliment, come to think of it.
Usually, more than one exclamation mark indicated that someone was taking the piss.
The weird thing was that I never heard a whisper from him again after that.
Obviously, it battered my ego a tad, because I thought that he’d seen me, not been impressed and scooted off into cyber oblivion in a massive hurry.
If only I was wearing a different shirt, I could have been married to that maniac by now. Or chained up in his basement.
Red Level
Red level was a different matter entirely. Sometimes, these people were difficult to spot, so here were some of the things to look out for:
1.They will text you consistently and frequently every day––starting from the very early bit of the morning after the night before.
2.They will plan the next 45 dates in terrifying detail.
3.They may ‘accidentally’ even tell you that they love you in the heat of your first passionate sex session (or dispassionate sex session, which is even more worrying).
4.They will invent multiple pet names for you even before the first date.
5.They may suggest you change your deodorant or after-shave to a fragrance they prefer.
6.They will friend request you on Facebook immediately.
7.Their Facebook friends are in single figures. Always a worry.
8.They keep popping up on a dating app as someone who has ‘viewed your profile’ every day.
9.They check in with you more than ten times a day. Nine is acceptable.
10.They know where you work before you’ve told them.
There were two types of Red level stalker.
The first was easy to spot, but persistent.
These ones usually remained online and accelerated quickly from everyday compliments to abuse once they’d realised that their advances were being ignored or shrugged off.
After you’d blocked them, they might even have created new profiles just to snipe at you.
The second type of red level stalker was someone who has taken the initiative to come and find you in real life, which brought me back to Freddy.
I had recently taken part in a team-building exercise at work which came in the form of a stand-up comedy course.
We all had to participate in a showcase at the end of it.
That showcase happened to be tonight. I was ‘playing’ at a comedy club in South London, and they were tweeting relentlessly about the show, but mostly about the better show that followed ours.
Whatevs. I had foolishly already decided to arrange meeting a guy called Mark at my ‘gig’ because he had great chat and this was actually the only evening that he could meet me for about a month.
Obviously, this was a dangerous move as you could never be sure how somebody will behave at a comedy club. It turned out the answer to this with regard to this particular man was: like an absolute prick.
I met Mark just before the gig. There was a disturbing lack of eye-contact between us and he seemed preoccupied with trying to cause mischief.
He heckled the acts and the compere. It was a nightmare.
And, of course, he heckled me when I went on and I, for want of a better word, struggled through my five minutes of ‘fame’.
To add to this, when I was onstage, I saw two punks in the audience whispering to each other.
It was making me uneasy as I had an awful feeling that the rainbow-haired one was in fact Freddy.
He knew my surname, and I had the feeling that he was the kind of person to embark on a bit of ‘red-level googling’ .
I rattled through my set and grabbed hold of Mark, attempting to leave the venue ASAP, which was annoying because Neil was on next, and I was keen to watch him tank. As I was ushering Mark out the door, I heard:
“Oiiii!”
I turned around to find the two punky guys facing me. It was indeed Freddy, who was accompanied by a green-haired man.
“Who’s this?” snarled Freddy, nodding towards Mark.
Freddy and his friend both leaned forward to obtain a better glance.
“Yeah, who’s this?” said the green-haired friend that reminded me a lot of Oscar the Grouch.
“What?” I pretended to play dumb, knowing full well this situation was about to go nuclear.
I knew this was not good, because I had been sexting Freddy that very day, and sensed that he was about to bring this up.
“I thought you didn’t want a relationship,” he hissed, quoting the standard fob-off line of any self-respecting serial-dater.
“Yeah, he said you said you didn’t want a relationship,” repeated Oscar.
This man was irritating me more than Freddy with his constant repetition.
Mark continued to stare at me silently, but with a smirk that I knew was about to erupt into some kind of venomous sarcasm.
“You know who he is don’t cha?” asked Oscar.
“Huh?” I said, squinting as if I couldn’t quite place Freddy’s distinctive barnet.
“I came ‘ere specially to see you tonight. I thought you was good, actually,” said Freddy .
“Thank you. Nice to meet you,” I said, turning away.
As I attempted to spin around, Freddy pulled me in close. “You fucking owe me a date. But it’s okay, I still love you,” he whispered.
“He still loves you,” repeated Oscar.
“Okay. I’ve gotta go now. Cheers,” I said, panicking profusely.
“No, fuck that, we are staying. Who’s this?” demanded Mark.
Freddy smirked and I knew that he was looking forward to telling Mark everything.
There was only one thing for it: I just ran away.
I had no investment in Mark, and I had a sense that Freddy was about to escalate in the volatility stakes.
So, I legged it. What I didn't bank on was that I was going to be chased. And not by Mark, either.
Freddy and Oscar burst out the door of the comedy club and started to give chase, shouting all manner of abuse. I went into a full sprint as the two punks pursued me, furiously swinging their matching mini rucksacks above their heads like PVC maces.
Freddy was so angry that he even threw his rucksack at me, almost sweeping my legs out, like Daredevil on the hunt for justice.
“I’m gonna fucking have you!” he screamed.
I have genuinely never moved that quickly, and I finally lost them as I ducked into the front garden of a residential care home and hid in the bushes there for about half an hour.
I spent the journey home being startled by the sight of anything multi-coloured. It happened to be Pride month, and there were a lot of flags dotted around the place, resulting in me pulling my now trademark karate moves every few streets .
All in all, it was a terrifying evening, but the worst bit, even worse than the anticipation of having to explain all of this to my work colleagues, was the message I received from Mark which read, ‘That was the best fucking comedy night I’ve ever been to.
When u playing again? I’ll bring some mates. ’
Thursday