“So, in my early 20’s I was working as a bartender. One night this girl comes in (I’ll call her ‘Lucy)’. She sits down at the end of the bar. She looks nervous, she’s checking her phone obsessively and over the next hour starts looking more and more upset. Eventually, I figure out she’s been stood up.
She’s on the verge of tears, I feel sorry for her, so I go over, put a free drink on the bar in front of her, and as I put it down I say ‘Just so you know, whoever stood you up is an idiot’
She gives a half-hearted laugh, a weak smile, and says thanks.
Over the rest of the night, we get talking. She’s good-looking, sweet, smart, funny…so I was absolutely delighted when she asked me if I’d like to take her out some time.
The next day we go out for coffee. Super-casual, barely a date, we just met at a coffee shop and hung out and chatted for a couple of hours. Again, she seemed to be pretty awesome and things went well.
The next night, I’m back in work, Lucy comes in again, sits at the end of the bar, we’re getting along great… and then I turn to serve a customer
Now, I’m a bartender, part of my job is being friendly with customers, so I’m serving this girl her drinks, just chatting… when Lucy stamps over and starts screaming at this girl at the top of her lungs to ‘Get the heck away from my boyfriend!’
The girl just gives her a surprised look, which Lucy takes as a personal challenge and punches the girl in the face.
I have to jump over the bar, get between them, grab Lucy and drag her out of the bar. I get her outside and tell her that I am not her boyfriend, that we went out once for coffee… and if she was going to flip the heck out and physically assault a customer at my job just for talking to me, I had no interest in being her boyfriend.
She screams she shouts, she starts trying to scratch my eyes out. I tell her to go the heck home before I call the police … so she spits in my face and storms off. I go back inside, apologize to the customer and finish my shift while trying to work out what the heck just happened.
The next morning I wake up to find 137 texts on my phone and my voicemail complete filled. It was absolutely weird. First lots of ‘I’m sorry, please forgive me,’ then ‘Why aren’t you answering?’ then ‘I hope you die,’ then back to apologies.
Basically, a cycle of her apologizing and begging for forgiveness, then a load of abuse, then apologies over and over.
I block her number. A couple of days later I start getting the same type of texts from a different number. I block that…a few days later, a different number again. I call her, tell her to stop calling me, threaten to call the police, that just spurs her on more.
About a month later. I’m back at work and Lucy walks in. As she gets to the bar, I tell her if she’s there to cause trouble, she can just leave… but she acts like she has no idea what I’m talking about and tells me she’s just meeting her new boyfriend there.
Inwardly, I breathe a sigh of relief. If she’s found a new guy, maybe I don’t have to worry. I mean he does, but maybe she’ll finally leave me alone.
Abour 20 minutes later the guy walks in. I don’t even notice until I go over to that side of the bar to take their order… and I look at the guy and my blood turns to ice.
This guy was my doppelganger. I mean, he looked exactly like me. I mean, he locks eyes with me and I see he’s genuinely startled. His face starts to break into a grin (I mean, it’s pretty cool to meet your exact double)… When Lucy introduces me to him as ‘her ex’.
I see the guy’s face fall. If you look up ‘Oh f* no’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of this guy’s expression when Lucy called me her ex. Yeah, imagine dating a new girl, meeting her ‘ex’, and realizing he’s basically your twin.
The guy looks super uncomfortable, I just get their drinks and stay the heck away… and she’s all over him. Every time she sees me glance in her direction, she grabs the guy and tries to kiss him. Over the next few hours, she gets wasted until finally, she has another meltdown.
Basically, her new boyfriend figured out that a) She was crazy and b) She was clearly just using him to make me jealous…and noped the heck out. His rapid departure and my total lack of reaction to her being all over him tipped her over the edge.
She goes ballistic, I have to kick her out again and I’m literally on my phone calling the police before she realizes I’m totally serious about calling them and books it.
The next night I was going to bed, turned off my bedroom light and my phone buzzed. It was her, the text just said ‘Goodnight’. I looked out my window and she was parked across the street. I have no idea how she found out where I lived.
Enough was enough. I called the police. I got a restraining order… but it was only after she got arrested for breaking it that she actually left me alone.”