Harmless, but annoying "stalking"? At what point should I take action?

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02/02/2016 09:17

Subject: Harmless, but annoying "stalking"? At what point should I take action?

quote

Anonymous

I am an amateur, but frequent, runner. I am married with children. Over a year ago, I went to a race in another state, and struck up a conversation with another runner. I am a better and more experienced runner than he is, so I was giving him some advice, as well as just general conversation. Full disclosure: yes, I did flirt with him a bit. I just considered it harmless banter--it happens a lot at races. He is also married with children, and lives in another state.

We continued contact after the race, but after a few weeks I told him that I was not comfortable with the "flirty" conversation and that it needed to stop. He asked if we could still keep in contact to talk about running things and I agreed.

And that was fine for a while--we just discussed running related stuff. But periodically he would try to be flirty again and I'd remind him that we were both married and I didn't want to do that. There were a few kind of "creepy" things--for example, one day I said my kids school was cancelled due to snow. A few days later he told me that he had my kids school district home page as one of the settings on HIS computer so he would know when their school was cancelled.

Several months ago (in August) his wife found out, and texted me that she wanted me to stop all contact with her husband; no texts, phone calls, or contact through a few of the running related websites we both frequent. I texted her back that I would stop all contact.

Since then, he has continued to try to contact me A LOT. Several times each week. He texts me, I don't respond. He tries to call me on the phone (I don't answer) and leaves voice mail messages. He has tried to call from other phone numbers (I'm guessing work? Or a payphone?) but since I can see the phone number is from his state, I don't answer. He continues to post things on the running related websites (for example, one of the sites lists the races I have done and the results, and he will leave a "cheer" for me on those.) I ignore all his attempts to contact me. At first I tried blocking his phone number, but I like I said, he will also use other phone numbers, email, the running related sites, etc. so I went ahead and unblocked his phone number so I could see how often he was contacted me and have a record, if needed.
He has sent me cards in the mail, with no signature, and nothing really written inside---just blank cards. But I can tell from the post mark where they were mailed from and he's the only person I know in that area.

There was a race last month that I was supposed to go to, but I knew he would be there so I did not go. He texted, called, emailed, etc. several times each day for a week surrounding that event, asking if we could meet up.

I don't think he is harmful in that I don't think he'll come kill me or kidnap me or anything. If he lived closer, I might worry that he would show up in the places I frequent---but he lives nearly 1000 miles away.
I thought that by ignoring him, he would eventually give up, but if anything, the longer this goes on, the more frequent the attempts are---I think back in September he was trying to contact me about once per week, and now it's become closer to 5 times per week, and sometimes several times in one day.

So should I break the "no contact" to tell him to stop? Ignoring doesn't seem to be working. Should I contact his wife and tell her about this? He had described her to me as being "mentally unstable"--but I really don't trust HIS word on that. When she texted me back in August, it was from his phone, but I have found her on facebook and could send her a message through there.

I know that I should not have engaged in the "flirting" earlier. I really did not think it would escalate to this.