This is John.

This is your OG.

Okay Storytime podcast hosts.

And we have some rocking stories for you coming up.

But before you rock out with your socks out, we got a quick two-minute ad break from a sponsors keeping the show rocking and rolling.

This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

My friend introduced me to a guy.

Now I'm losing my favorite coffee shop.

Well, that just sucks.

Not again.

I live alone in a city and I've had some trouble making friends.

I go to the same cafe every day and the owners have taken on almost a parental role since

my family is so far away.

I'm close with them and I trust them and they care about my well-being.

So when one of the owners, Sarah, gave me the number of another close with them and I trust them and they care about my well-being, so when one of the

owners, Sarah, gave me the number of another regular, Derek, I trusted her judgment. By the way, this comes from user-wrong competition and if you want to submit your own stories, submit them to the R-slash-O-K Storytime sub-reddit. I know Derek a little bit from spending time in the cafe. It's a small place and we both sit at the counter so we can chat with the owners. Usually we sit next to each other. We've chatted about

movies. He once helped me with my language homework and he's generally in the cafe hanging out

most afternoons, sometimes reading, sometimes working on his computer. He's also friends with the

owners of the cafe and has always seemed like a nice person, so I certainly wasn't against getting to know him better. When Sarah gave me his number yesterday, she was selling him pretty hard. I asked her about the book she was reading, and she said, Derek lent it to me. And when I asked about a card game, she said, Derek taught it to me. So I said, okay, I get it. I'll text him. I texted Derek after I left the cafe, and I thought it was maybe a bad idea, because if things went south, it would be uncomfortable to see him in the cafe almost every day. But it seemed like Derek had already set things in motion by asking a Sarah to slip me his phone number in the first place. Derek told me that he could use more friends in the neighborhood and that he'd like to get to know me outside of the cafe. So he went for a few adult sodas. So, last night I learned that Derek is 31. Yay. Unemployed. Boo. And he sees, passed away people. He's a full-on weirdo, which is fine. I still had fun hanging out with him, and I didn't feel unsafe or threatened until I got home. In the 10 minutes, it took for me to get into my apartment and get ready for bed. Derek sent me about 20 messages about how he wanted to kiss me and asking if he could come upstairs. I told him, no. Thank you for a fun evening. Good night and went to bed. My phone died. Overnight, and when I woke up, I plugged it in. He had sent me more messages confronting me about blocking his number, which I didn't do. These messages were over the top and intense and honestly, they worry me a bit. It's obvious to me that I need to back away from this person, but right now, I have no idea how to do this gracefully. I wouldn't mind a friendship, but he's made it clear that he's interested in a romantic relationship. I just want to be able to get coffee and enjoy myself without any awkwardness. What can I do? What should I say to Derek? And should I tell Sarah that this guy freaked me out? We have a small update. Thank you for your advice. I just went to have some coffee and talk with Sarah. I didn't tell her everything, but I told her I found Derek a little strange, and she asked me what happened, and I told her what she, what he said about seeing ghosts. I mentioned in one of my comments that Sarah shares some of Derek's interest in spirituality and mindfulness. We talked a little more about this. She's a very open-minded person. Sarah knows Derek believes he sees and hears ghosts and said she wasn't sure if it was true,

but she didn't believe he was deranged. I probably misunderstood some of what he was telling me about

seeing passed away people because we weren't speaking English. Okay? She asked me overall how I felt

...