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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think my friend is stalking me

81 replies

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 · 22/02/2019 19:25

A bit of an exaggeration but my friend seems to spookily know when I arrive home and always seems to know if i'm out. At first I put it down to co-incidence but now it seems to happen to much for it to be a coincidence

I've checked all my facebook settings but they don't show my location.

Another really weird thing is that a little while ago I had a exchange student lets call him Pete, staying with me who used to walk into town every morning to get to college. My friend said to me once, "Does Pete always wear that checked shirt, hasn't he got any others?" Pete did seem to wear his checked shirt a lot but i'd never even introduced her to him and they hadn't met?????

AIBU to wonder whats going on?

OP posts:
Jux · 22/02/2019 21:57

I had a similar experience with a woman who lived a couple of streets away. I couldn't see her house from ours and it never occurred to me that she could see ours; she could though, if she climbed on her kitchen unit and squirmed through the skylight. Which she told me she did after a few months of her popping up completely unexpectedly (all the ruddy time), telling me she knew I'd had a disturbed night (she could see when the bedroom light was on) and all sorts of other things. Very disturbing and weird.

I hadn't liked her much anyway, but she just kept on turning up and behaving as if we were best mates. Once I had found out she was sitting on her roof watching our house, I became very cold towards her and after a while she moved.

Georgeofthejungle · 22/02/2019 22:07

I have my husband and friend on find my friends. It super handy if you can’t get hold of them and you need to know where they are :)

Not place marking, honest Grin

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 22/02/2019 22:32

I couldn't see her house from ours and it never occurred to me that she could see ours; she could though, if she climbed on her kitchen unit and squirmed through the skylight. Which she told me she did after a few months of her popping up completely unexpectedly (all the ruddy time), telling me she knew I'd had a disturbed night (she could see when the bedroom light was on) and all sorts of other things. Very disturbing and weird.

What a weirdo. Reminds me of the old joke about the very old lady who calls the police around to complain about the disgusting young, athletic man in the house across the road who walks around naked all the time with his bedroom curtains open.

The policeman comes around, observes the situation and says "It's not indecent, Madam - from where you are, you can only ever see him from the waist up anyway."

To which the lady shrieks "The wardrobe, Officer - jump up and stand on top of the wardrobe!!"

NoAngel1 · 22/02/2019 22:38

Change your passwords- maybe she logged into your Facebook account or something?

SuchAToDo · 22/02/2019 22:46

Op do you have the same routine every day (e.g going out and coming home at roughly the same times)...if you do could she be slouched down in a car further down the street watching you?

If she calls you and makes comments about your day, correct her and say the opposite, try to get her to expose how she knows..e.g

If you are home all day and age says you have never left your house all day, say something like, I've been out all day, went in to town/visit parents/shopping in another town etc

If you have been out, and she comments you have been out all day, just say to her you haven't left the house

If you have visitors and she says you have had visitors to your house, just say nobody has come to your house that day

If you have been to visit someone and she knows about it and comments, just say you have stayed home

If she knows so much about you either she is spying on you herself, or someone else is spying on you and telling her about your daily whereabouts,

Next time she comments on your whereabouts, I would ask her outright of she is following /spying/how she knows

Then after that I'd resort to the telling her the opposite from then on...

I'd probably phase her out slowly too, but that's just me, I don't like people monitoring my movements

Fiveletters · 22/02/2019 22:52

Could you disagree with something she says, so when she asks about work, say it was your day off, and see what she says?

IDoN0tCare · 22/02/2019 22:53

Eventually I jokingly accused her of stalking me and she stopped. I don’t think she realised how she was making me feel.

You do realise that she’s still stalking you, but just not telling you about what she sees now, don’t you?

Littleraindrop15 · 22/02/2019 22:59

Ask her..

Original poster
NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 · 22/02/2019 23:12

I don't think its anything sinister, more pure nosiness!

I'll change my passwords on things anyway.

Thanks for all the tips everyone, i'll take them on board.

OP posts:
ChairPoseKills · 22/02/2019 23:13
Scarydinosaurs · 22/02/2019 23:17

If she is sending you FB chat messages, it is probably just that you’ve been shown as active on FB chat?

It isn’t sinister- unless there is a huge drip feed you’re missing out?

MyShinyWhiteTeeth · 22/02/2019 23:29

My friend is SM obsessed and stalks her children online. She started doing the same to me so I had to turn off a few things/get someone to sort out my privacy issues etc.

Some people just lack recognition of normal boundaries.

PocketFluff · 23/02/2019 00:02

I was going to say the same as Scarydinosaurs. Are you only on Facebook when you've finished work?

Monty27 · 23/02/2019 00:51

You should tell her you were elsewhere and give her a Hmm look
Blooming weirdo
I would go out of my way to vex her

BaileyD222 · 23/02/2019 01:11

this is straight up weird of her!

category12 · 23/02/2019 01:30

It's probably as simple as you show active on Messenger and you haven't switched off location on it.

DownAndUnder · 23/02/2019 01:47

If she’s a friend can you not just ask her? If she’s not just start being busy and distancing yourself. Change your privacy settings, I think you can see who your location if shared with on most apps. If this was my friend I’d just “bloody hell, how did you know that/where I was?” if I was genuinely surprised they knew something.

CantStopMeNow · 23/02/2019 02:02

I know how you feel OP.
I had a so-called best mate stalk me after i started avoiding her calls and being less available.
It didn't matter if i took a different route home (3 diff ways to get to my flat) as she would be parked by whichever road/entrance i used.
It didn't matter that i purposely arrived back at different times (sometimes 1-2 hours) she'd be there waiting with her engine idling.

My gut told me something was up, there were too many coincidences for it to be a coincidence.
Then i remembered....she'd borrowed my phone 'to check something' just before the stalking behaviour started.
There were no apps on my phone, location was turned off.....for some reason i opened Google Maps whilst walking down the alleyway behind my flat - and there was a blue dot located in my carpark.
Sure enough when i peeked round the corner there she was sat in her ON HER PHONE!

I was too stunned to bring it up with her.
I'd already had the conversation about her calling me everyday as soon as i finished work and expecting me to stay on the phone talking to her throughout my hour commute home on the bus.
I think that was what triggered her to secretly set up tracking on my phone.
All she was doing was sitting in my flat every evening (usually in complete silence) expecting me to entertain her.

The last time i caught her i just snapped "what the fuck are you doing here?", endured that last evening of stifling 'company' and then promptly unfriended and blocked her on social media.

She got the message.

Decormad38 · 23/02/2019 02:13

Some of these posts are weirding me out. Stalky friends. 😱 I would definitely kick her into touch.

NigellaAwesome · 23/02/2019 02:16

This must be something to do with your location services settings.

Although it doesn't explain Pete.

mokapot · 23/02/2019 02:18

Come back and Let us know you’re alive in a few weeks

BartonHollow · 23/02/2019 02:23

It's definitely your location services. I wonder if she'll stick her foot in it by asking about it.

A close friend of mine alerted me to this years ago because apparently due to location services, if you clicked on my tweets it showed my house on a map 😱

OwlBeThere · 23/02/2019 03:13

i have a friend a bit like this, bt she lives 200 miles away so definitely isn't watching me, but she does pop up the second i log onto facebook. and if i don't reply she gets really moody and says shes seen me talking elsewhere on facebook. its annoying as fuck, but i know she does it cos shes lonely and has no friends really so i tolerate it. i think it probably is that she sees you long in. though, the pete thing i'd just ask her about!

Zippetydoodahzippetyay · 23/02/2019 03:26

@IdoN0tCare
I assume she still does see me sometimes but I make a point of not walking past her House now when I go for walks and I tend to go to different parks. She is home a lot with small children and I have excellent security cameras and she doesn’t appear to be sticking her head over the fence or anything. To be honest I think she is just a lonely person with poor social skills. She annoyed me but I never felt unsafe.

Mummyoflittledragon · 23/02/2019 04:41

Do you have a lot of pics on Facebook with Pete wearing the shirt / do snap chats etc?