Rob and I have been watching “Dexter,” which is a television show about a cop who happens to be a serial killer who only kills other serial killers. I have never been the victim of a serial killer (knock on bamboo), but I used to want to be a criminal profiler for the FBI. That was a short-lived dream, however, and I can’t remember my timeline of desires well enough to know whether it was replaced by “air traffic controller” or “inner-city school teacher.” Because my ambitions are never anything that doesn’t involve enough pressure to make diamonds.

I have been the victim of a stalker, though. It was my second year back in Baltimore when I lived in the basement of that mansion on Charles Street. That was the era in which I was going through two or three Internet dates a day--and that doesn’t even include the sex, I was just meeting all of those guys for coffee at the City Café to see if I wanted to go to bed with them at a later time (which I often did). The baristas who worked there were on to me and would have my favorite drinks waiting when I walked in.

Once I met this guy, I forget his name, but we will call him John because many crazy people are named John. I don’t forget what he looked like: about my height, probably fifteen years older than I was, military haircut, and mustache. Very well-defined body but terrible fashion sense. He had the persona of a somewhat intellectual redneck, which I found appealing but challenging as many of his self-taught notions were more conservative than I would have liked. All in all, not boyfriend material but I anticipated good sex. Except before we got around to sex, John revealed that he was in a long-term relationship. I’m not sure I had anything against that per se as long as it was going to be just physical, but he had already begun calling me a great deal. When I answered the phone, he would entrap me in desperate discussions about how he wanted to spend time with me; when I stopped answering the phone, he confided those desires to my answering machine in intricate monologues that filled up the tape.

These were warning signs, but it was flattering on one level. I was young, alone, and insecure, and here was this guy who was seemingly crazy about every aspect of me. Yes, he was also seemingly crazy in general, but I thought all I had to do was ignore him for a while and he would go away, at which point I could take my boosted ego on to the next set of men the Internet expectorated.

Then I found out that he was an alcoholic who attended nightly AA meetings around the corner from my apartment. Or maybe I knew that part already and had been open-minded about it, but the situation was driven home when he would come by my basement apartment before and after those gatherings and ring my doorbell and knock on my windows, which were luckily barred. I could see his silhouette through the curtains and often glimpsed him through the windows I hadn’t bothered to cover. After a while, I conjured up some assertiveness and told him he had to leave me alone, but he was suddenly everywhere. At that time, I lived, worked, went to grad school, dated, and had sex with virtual strangers all within the same neighborhood—Baltimore's gay ghetto—and he seemed to have figured out my routine. He had stopped speaking to me at my request, although his stare was long, piercing, and desperate. I often saw him lingering outside my apartment and in the café, although he always managed to seem just innocent enough to have plausible deniability if confronted.

Finally, I figured out that the ex-boyfriend of one of my friends was in the same AA group. I confided the whole story to him and asked him to intervene, which he must have, because suddenly, out of the blue, the whole situation just ended. I saw John from afar a few times, and although we both seemed keenly aware of each other’s presence, he pointedly ignored me and I pointedly ignored him. Perhaps if I had actually been an FBI criminal profiler, I would have been able to figure everything out sooner and dispassionately cut him off at the pass, but at that point I had already decided to be a writer and graphic designer who was going to school full time, formed a business partnership with a friend and worked more than full time, and also seemed to be on a full-time rampage in search of love and good sex.

I guess I’m not really one to make things easy for myself.