This happened a few years ago. I was a senior in high school and my sister had recently graduated from college. We were walking back from somewhere and were about two blocks from home when a guy who was probably in his 30s drove up near us really slowly in a pick-up truck. It was kind of hard to hear what he was saying, since he was was pulled over to the right side of the road and wasn’t really shouting or anything, so we weren’t sure at first what he wanted. He started to say things to my sister like “Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend?” Then when we began walking again he just rolled along next to us, so my sister tried to be direct and said, “We’re not going anywhere until you leave.” He didn’t really seem to know how to respond to that, and after some awkward silence he drove down the street.

So, what happened next makes sense if you know how the streets are arranged in the neighborhood. There are three blocks parallel to each other and then one block perpendicular to them all that you can walk around with only a sidewalk on the left hand side (no street) or get around with the street on the right hand side. After he drove off we walked on the sidewalk-only side and once we had gotten around realized that he had driven around, as well. He was now on another street just beyond this whole cluster of blocks and we were on our own street, but on the block across the street from our house. When he wasn’t in sight we crossed the street and went in the house. Once inside we saw him circle the other block, the place he had last seen us walking. Eventually we didn’t see the truck anymore, but we were still pretty freaked out.

My sister had to leave and I would have been the only person in the house, so she ended up taking me to a friend’s house. Before that, though, we looked up police department numbers in the phone book and explained the situation to someone. The lady who answered was polite and listened, though she might not have actually been the person who was able to do anything about it.

Submitted by anonymous on 5/5/2010

Location: Arlington, VA

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