Campus e-mail just informed us that a guy's been lurking around the women's dorms around here...

[antigone382]

...following girls around and asking them to come with him into the woods "to find his cell phone." They've reported him and our Public Safety department is on the lookout, but we've been warned to travel in groups or with a campus-provided escort. Previously I haven't given a second thought to wandering around campus by myself, even late at night; I don't like living in fear, and generally I think the risk of attack is minimal. Some female friends and I actually plan on going camping tomorrow night on a nearby mountain. But now I'm a little afraid to go out after dark.

This is the second time in my life when I've felt it necessary to restrict my activity in response to such a threat. There was a guy who I'm pretty sure was stalking me (though at the request of my roommates, and because all my evidence was circumstantial, I very foolishly did not report it). I was not allowed to leave work without at least two escorts. Though I loved strolling on the sidewalks of the small town where I lived, I was unwilling to go out alone, and none of my roommates would go with me, so I was pretty much stuck in my own house all the time.

Wandering around outdoors is part of my identity, and it infuriates me to give that up out of self-preservation. I'm fantasizing about going out by myself in defiance, maybe even finding this lurker and getting in his face. But of course I realize how futile and dangerous that would probably be.