I have my very own stalker. Let me explain: back in my college days I was friends with a guy I shall call Nigel (because that’s his name); we were on the same course and used to hang out all the time. This was before I came out to anybody and during the days Nigel would profess his attraction to girls 24/7, so we were, to all intents and purposes, two young, heterosexual males freshly ejected from the nest, taking our first steps into an adult world. The funny thing is, despite Nigel’s full-on fancying of the opposite sex, by the end of our two year course his tally of notches on the hetero bed post was the same as mine, precisely 0 (give or take a fumble with a very mannish girl). This did cause me to question if he might really be gay, but then I had enough on my plate coming to terms with my own sexuality.

We gradually lost touch after college, moving to different cities and making new friends. Then early last year I was walking through town and I heard this quiet voice behind me say my name. I turned around and it was Nigel, looking slightly sad and apprehensive. We had a ten minute chat and I discovered he was now working down here, although living elsewhere and commuting in every day. It was nice to see him and we met up twice for drinks, which was enough to underline how little we now had in common and the conversation was harder work on the second night. Nigel wasn’t at all surprised to find out I’m gay and while my life has followed a steep trajectory since those college days, Nigel’s life appears closely moulded to back then. He continued with the subject we both studied and now has a job in that field. And he is still with that mannish girl! Now a very mannish woman; there’s no doubt who calls the shots in that relationship.

So I let things slide, believing Nigel would slip out of my life just as before. How wrong I was: first came the texts, getting more frequent and more desperate, Nigel wanting to meet again. It gets harder to come up with polite reasons not to meet. The phone calls came next, and while these were easy to ignore, the answer machine messages were not. There was suddenly this urgency to Nigel’s requests to meet and he ‘had something he really needed to talk to me about’. I thought the best thing was to not respond and after a while the phone calls stopped.

Then Rich and I moved to our new place and I nearly forgot about Nigel until one cold Saturday in January when I bumped into him in town again while out shopping with Richard. I tried to act casual, looking surprised when he told me about all the messages he had left on my mobile.

“Oh, you know what, I’ve changed my phone and you must have been calling my old number,” I lied.

Of course he asked for my new number, which stumped me. I stated my correct number, changing just the last digit. He couldn’t leave it there, however, insisting on calling my phone to make sure. When it didn’t ring, I asked him to read back the number, then laughed and said I’d got it wrong at the end. I corrected him, but now he had my genuine number again and, hold on, that was the number he’d been ringing… time to leave.

We made our excuses, but before we went in the opposite direction he again said there was something he needed to talk to me about. He looked very serious and laid his eyes on Rich, uncomfortably, before looking back at me. He’d give me a call later.

But he didn’t. Instead I got a letter saying he really needed to talk to me; could I call him? How did he get my address? Turns out he still had my parent’s phone number and had done some fishing. I ignored the letter, but worse was to come when he turned up on my doorstep last weekend … with his mannish girlfriend. This was getting out of hand and I quickly made up some rubbish about how we were just about to leave to go and see Rich’s Mum. The girlfriend got it, pulling Nigel’s hand back towards the car, but I don’t think he did.

I know what he wants to talk about, but I don’t want to be the person to shoulder that baggage. That might seem selfish, but if the drama and obsessive stalking that I’ve already experienced without giving an inch is anything to go by, I would have a real load of crap to deal with. And it’s not like we’re close; we were friends years ago and have lost any connection we had. It’s probably just that I’m the only gay person he knows well, or maybe he’s been desperately in love with me since college! Maybe his girlfriend’s strap-on is bust and he just needs some cock.

Thing is, if he hadn’t been so psycho about it, we’d probably have had the conversation he so badly wants, but now I won’t give into him as a matter of principle. Must admit, though, I’m curious how that conversation would go.