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If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. I'm a 30-year-old female, and I'm a 30-year-old female, and I had one of the most terrifying stalking experiences 12 years ago.

I was 18 years old, and the great Gatsby movie with Leonardo DiCaprio had just been released around that time.

Being really young, I was inexperienced and very naive about how to remain safe

when receiving unwanted attention.

As such, I made every mistake in the book with this guy, who was 23 at the time when he started stalking me.

I had just graduated from high school

and took a job at a health food store

in the downtown area of the city I was living in.

It was my first customer service job.

The owner was a big hippie who was easy to work with,

and she was flexible with scheduling people's hours.

At first, I worked at different shifts until I eventually

took the afternoon shift, which meant that I had to close. Due to how small the store was,

I was alone during later shifts, and I didn't work with any of my other coworkers. Sometimes the store

owner would sporadically drop by

to grab items off the shelf for personal use, and then leave after about 30 minutes or so.

As a side note, our store was situated next to a building that had subsidized housing for those

recently released from incarceration, or those who were low-income.

So, the evening and nighttime hours could be risky for young women to be out without a male escort.

Every restaurant downtown had staff who escorted girls to their cars, as it was common to be followed with

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