Friday, April 22, 2011

and now you're stalking me?

my parents raised me to be a good person... so i blame them for many of the awkward/uncomfortable moments in my life. i may not come across as such in this anti-social, hate-on-humanity blog of mine, but i can actually be nice. especially to people i don't know. when someone talks to me, i listen and appear interested. when someone is in a pickle, i help them out. when someone is upset, i comfort them. i hold doors open and explain difficult homework problems and share my food and will put down my book to hold a conversation if that's you want. because that's what i was raised to do. unfortunately, this common decency has often been misconstrued in the past. someone always ends up thinking i'm interested in them and things get awkward cause i kinda suck at rejecting people and at the end of the day i wonder why my parents couldn't have screwed up in raising me like so many other people i know.

in the latest addition to my ever-growing list of awkward moments, i have a new stalker! exciting stuff, my life. so there was this dude a few weeks ago from another section of a class i'm in. he had missed his and so attended ours. he stops my reading in the hallway before class with the ever-intelligent question of "are you muslim?" and things just went downhill from there. before i get ahead of myself, here, let me just say that he's some arab dude the same age as my dad, give or take a year. who's not married. anyways, he starts up a conversation and it turns out that he writes for a lot of arabic magazines. he's a "professional writer" as he likes to mention every few seconds. i make some comment on how arabic is a beautiful language and i wish i could write/speak it half as well as i do english. he goes off on a long-winded rant about the differences between the two languages, how he edits arabic papers, and how he quit writing from a prestigious magazine because it had too many typos and it reflected badly on him. i listen and nod and make appreciative comments and then class starts. he gives me his email, tells me to email him my arabic stuff for him to edit, and then after class walks with me all the way to my car continuing his talk about his obsession with the arabic language. oh, and how he knows a bunch of my high school teachers. i escape after a five minute conversation at my car, wrongly convinced that i would never see him again. 

the other day while leaving a building, guess who i run into? yup. he asks why i haven't sent him anything to edit, i mumble something about being busy with school and not having anything to send and then rush off. i think to myself, okay, that's the last time i'll ever see him.

until yesterday. when he shows up at my class. after the initial nod of recognition, i ignore him during it under the pretense of listening to presentations and doing my own. i then sneak out at the end by discussing my project with my partner, then practically run down the stairs as i hear him call my name. avoidance: my number one defense mechanism. unfortunately, there was a traffic jam on the stairs and he caught up with me. apparently he sat through the whole three hours of my class because he brought a magazine that had an interview he wrote in it. which he then made me read. out loud. while walking. and then he made a comment about how i seem nervous to be reading out loud cause i keep pausing (uh it's called trying to see where i'm going) and how i sounded nervous presenting when i shouldn't have because my partner had an accent which made my parts good by default. jerk. he was very impressed with himself and kept laughing at the jokes in the interview (which he had memorized by the way) and pointing out good points he had made. after that he pulls out his arabic calligraphy stuff and pokes me with a porcupine quill. repeatedly. despite my insistence that yes, i get it, it's sharp. it hurts. until i eventually snapped at him to stop it already. he then goes on to randomly recite poetry he had written for a friend's wedding, complete with hand gestures and everything that would make a high school arabic teacher proud. he finishes the first poem, explains the backstory and how everyone just loved it and then says a second one. which of course everyone loved too. he goes on to tell me about the time that he saved the day by giving the speech at friday prayer when the imam was late despite him only having three minutes to prepare it. i pretended to be surprised at the fact that it turned out awesome and, yup you guessed it, everyone loved it. 

throughout the entire one-sided conversation that typically consisted of him expressing his love for arabic and himself, i kept saying that i had to go because my sister was with me. who i texted. who took a while to text me back. who took forever to get to starbucks. he stayed until like two seconds before she came. before he left he gave me an assignment to summarize his interview and to write something in english and then translate it into arabic. i'm supposed to send all that to him to edit. i felt like i was back in grade school trying to think of excuses to get out of homework. i have a feeling that he'll be at class next thursday. and the one after that. 

it wouldn't bother me so much if he wasn't teetering on the edge of conceited friend and creepy arab hitting on younger girls. i mean, he's literally old enough to be my dad. plus, he doesn't seem too impressed by the fact that i'm engaged. 

there is a line between friendliness and stalkerness, and him, well, he crossed over yesterday. i can't bring myself to tell him outright to stop being such a creep, and he doesn't seem to take hints too well. so now i have to keep an eye out for him until the semester ends and do arabic homework. grr. 

*Not That Beautiful - AFI

12 comments:

  1. Im on my phone but I really wanna comment....stop talking to him. There will be a continuation to this soon

    ReplyDelete
  2. By the looks of it, to stay on the safe side, first warn him and if he does n't listen .. file a restraining order against him.

    This is scary stuff, stand up for yourself!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anon hippo... i will await the continuation.

    Anonymous... lol a restraining order? it's really not that serious. despite being too nice, i can actually take care of myself. it's more annoying-creepy than scary-creepy. thanks for the concern, though.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're welcome, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  5. anonymous hippopotamusApril 23, 2011 at 4:51 PM

    i was going to say the same thing as anonymous...restraining order. but then i was like..then you'll have to tell someone about his creepiness..

    seriously though...stop talking to him. He could turn out to be some psycho. especially asking you to do homework for him?? what a loser. you better not actually do any of it.

    *sigh* seriosuly..what is wrong with you?? lol why do you attract the weirdos?

    i can't remember what else i was going to write yesterday so i'm just going to stop trying to figure it out and end with saying...avoid the dude at all costs. and if he won't leave you alone..threaten him with a restraining order even though you wouldn't actually do it. :D

    what a pathetic loser he is.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Could n't agree more with Anon hippo! Blogspot needs a LIKE button so I could've liked his/her comment.

    You should just avoid him or tell that desperate dickwad to go take his frustration out at a brothel. I can't stand people like that.

    And what's wrong with telling the necessary people about his creepiness? If he does n't acknowledge the fact that he's a creep then why should we care?

    Okay, ironically, it's kinda creepy for me to show so much care for someone I don't even know so I'll say no more unless someone questions me. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. can i just point out that it's slightly very strange to have Anonymous and anonymous hippopotamus agree with each other? the world must be coming to an end lol.

    anyway, i feel bad. stupid of me, i know, but whatever. also, there is a chance that he just really likes to talk about himself and have someone listen and make the right comments about how awesome his poetry is and nothing else. i kinda doubt it, but as long as there's a possibility i'd feel mean being rude.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 'as long as there's a possibility i'd feel mean being rude'

    ... until your head's mounted on his arabic inscribed walls, stuffed with formaldehyde, tongue rolling out and eyes wide and glassy...
    k. stop being dumb.

    r. out.

    ReplyDelete
  9. lool. hey, at least i'll be a polite wall decoration. but seriously, it's like two more thursdays and i'll never see him again. i think i can stick it out.

    ReplyDelete
  10. this is why it's good to be a mean grouchy person such as myself. it wards off these weirdos.

    ReplyDelete
  11. mahoney... when they're just completely creepy without the chance that i might be mistaken, i can be mean and grouchy. i just tend to feel bad when they seem kinda pathetic.

    Lujain... i take it you relate?

    ReplyDelete