Real Encounters

*Be careful who you meet on the internet*

About a year ago, I joined a Facebook group for the 'Class of 2018' of the university I intended to attend. On the group page, we were encouraged to make small posts about ourselves to aid in the process of making friends. I, being kind of socially awkward, followed after the hundreds of freshmen before me and posted a short bio about myself and my interests.

Not long after I posted, I was barraged by messages in my inbox and friend requests, one of these people was James. He came off as very charming, but a little off in a way that I couldn't quite place my finger on. Within the first 5 minutes of talking to me he suggested that we get married on Facebook. I reluctantly agreed and subsequently opened the door for this creep into my life.

James was like a child in many ways, though he was 20 years old he acted like my spoiled 9 year old cousin and would throw hissy fits when he didn't get what he wanted. Recognizing this, I broke ties with him before starting college. Unfortunately for me, he would have none of that.

My first semester was marked by dating around and getting screwed over by the one I came to like. During this time, I learned that James worked security for the dorm buildings on campus. One night after getting back to my dorm from the dining hall with my roommate, he was sitting at the reception desk.

He immediately greeted me with a hug which was unusual as I hadn't spoken to him in months. He also told me that he thought of me every time he passed my room when he did security rounds- the rounds done in the dorm halls were done by RAs, not nighttime desk assistants. This was my first real red flag.

It scared me that James knew where I lived, I felt like I lost the sense of privacy living away from home gave me.

The rest of the semester passed without much but a few disturbing phone calls from an obviously drunk James begging me to talk to him. I didn't think much of it at the time because he was doing the same thing to my friend Abby whom he hooked up with the previous year.

At the start of spring semester, James started texting me asking for advice which I would reluctantly give. I felt sorry for him and felt the need to help him feel better. The texts escalated to phone calls and eventually in person meet ups because he told me to come see his new cat.

After the first meet up, James started getting a little too attached to me and eventually threatened to kill himself if I didn't date him or give him a chance. He called me one night and told me he had a gun to his temple ready to blow if I didn't become his girlfriend. I still said no, but told him to come over to my dorm so I could make sure he was okay.

That night he forcibly kissed me among other undesirable things and I forced myself to date him. I was a rape survivor before I met James and tried to convince myself he wasn't the same as my attacker. But I was very wrong.

James had an obsession with pornography and tried to get me to watch it with him though I always objected. He also was an alcoholic and a manipulative liar. He would lie to me and tell me about his father dying, or his adoptive parents exploiting him and I'd take pity on him and put up with his behavior. I always try to find the best in people, but there was no good in him.

His obsessions with bdsm nearly turned deadly for me one night. We were having sex when he started choking me. I started hitting him with all my power and eventually he let go. Being an asthmatic, an attack was set off by this and I nearly passed out.

His anger issues got very problematic as he escalated just from yelling to kicking and screaming and eventually he would throw things and hit me. He lived with two other roommates and one of them came to my rescue one night that he was drunk and being violent.

I broke up with him after that, still fearful that he may have gotten me pregnant after raping me one night, but relieved he was no longer in my life. He continued calling me from random phone numbers telling me he was coming to my dorm to get me and take me away and that we would have a family together and live happily. I called it as a bluff, but I was horribly wrong.

At night, I started hearing knocking on my dorm door and when is look through the eye hole, James was standing there. This creeped me out so I began locking the front door whenever I was in my suite. I thought this would help, but one night my roommate left the door unlocked after a night of partying.

I slept soundly in my bed as James came into my room and watched me sleep. If it wasn't bad enough that he did that, he took pictures of my sleeping face and sent them to my phone. He took a smiling selfie with a thumbs up and me in the background and another of him kissing my cheek.

After receiving the messages along with a text that said "see you later baby", I nearly lost it. I locked my bedroom every night and day and slept with a videocamera recording my door. He never showed up again after the message, but he still haunts my thoughts.

James later got arrested for his violent and erratic behavior when he attempted to beat up his roommate and gave death threats to his roommates girlfriend. He was fired from his job and banned from all campus dorm halls, which gives me peace of mind, and now works as an uber driver. I now have an effective restraining order against him, but he still attends my university on probation.

I noticed he began adding other girls on the class of 2019 page (the new incoming freshmen) and commenting on their posts the same way he did to me. I hope for their sakes they know better than to meet up with a stranger they met on the Internet.