Bumps & Bruises
The Stalker
by Anonymous

I have never told anyone about this before. None of my speaker friends has heard this. I’ve never told a client or an audience. Frankly, I am only telling it here because I am told I can remain anonymous, and there is a lesson to be learned. Several years ago, I had a stalker.

Most of my speaking is away from the city in which I live, so when people ask where I am from and I name the city, that is all they want to know. But once while speaking in my own hometown, an audience member asked where I lived. I told him, "right here in (city)." "Really? Where?" before you know it, both of us having the location in common, I was down to something like "white house, south side, near the end of the cul de sac." It never occurred to me he would show up.

But show up, he did, while I was out of town. My wife answered the door; he introduced himself and asked for me. "I’m sorry, he isn’t here right now. May I help you?"

He referred to me by my first name, seemed to know me well and referred to our earlier conversation as if he and I were friends. So my wife invited him inside where he saw our home, saw the family photos on the shelves and even met my daughter minutes later when she came home from school. When I called home that night, I was certainly surprised but even then it didn’t occur to either of us that he might show up again.

But a few days later, he showed up again. And again. Maybe five or six times altogether over the next few weeks, never with a good reason. Around visit number five, I was home and answered the door. Seeing him, I politely but firmly backed him up from the door, off the porch, down the walkway, across the sidewalk, around his car and up to the car door. I even opened the driver’s door and held it open for him to get in and leave, taking with him my verbal instructions not to come back. It was clear that he was not welcome.

For two weeks all was at peace again. Then he came back while I was gone. So I went and found him at his office and repeated my instructions loud enough for others to hear. My index finger repeatedly punctuated my instructions against his chest. I probably should not have touched him, but I do know something about visual aids…and I wanted it clear that if we ever had this conversation again, I was going to do more than tap on his breastbone. I was loud so others in his office would hear and I hoped he would be embarrassed. I also wanted witnesses who could swear I never actually threatened him.

But what if that wasn’t enough? Just in case, my next stop was the local police department. No formal police report was filed, but a pair of large patrolmen managed to make a stop at my stalker’s office the next day, take him outside and deliver a "firm" message in front of the office’s big picture window. It worked; I never saw him again.

What did I learn?

1. Public speaking is a public career. The truth is that I am a very private person in a semi-public career. I like performing, but in reality I don’t need to be in the spotlight. As far as I’m concerned, the spotlight just lets people see the show better.
2. In a moment of carelessness at our first meeting, I gave my home location to someone who didn’t need to know it. Just because they ask doesn’t mean you have to answer them.
3. My wife made me promise that I would never again tell any work-contact where I live. It should never have happened and I don’t even know another speaker to whom it has. But in the process, I put my family at risk, made her fear for our daughter’s safety and for herself.
4. To this day, very few people have any idea where I live. The city, yes; the address, no. Our extended family certainly knows and the neighbors know who I am. But other than that, it doesn’t come up and I don’t volunteer it.

Ordinarily, the only way you get rid of a stalker is when your stalker becomes obsessed with someone else more than with you. Do you ever wonder what happened to the woman who kept breaking into show host David Letterman’s house? She developed a fixation on a certain moon-walking astronaut. Mine was so much easier than that. But there is no point in pushing the envelope when it doesn’t need to be pushed at all.