I have a friend called Stacey.

Stacey is sweet, shy, snarky, defensive, politically aware, fiercely loyal and, unfortunately, a little bit creepy. She also has a crush on me.

Now, Stacey is a friend of mine. Not a close friend, but a friend, and since the university trimester has started up, we've been running into each other more and more. And she's been getting creepier and creepier and creepier.

For one thing, she follows me and my friends. Everywhere. Once she skipped a lecture to follow us. Even after we commented, appalled, that she should go to the lecture, since the other stream of STATS 193 (the stream I'm in) takes place at the same time as her POLSCI, she insisted on coming along. Then, rather than go to POLSCI, she followed me to STATS 193, saying that a friend of hers in POLSCI could get her the POLSCI notes.

I was more than mildly creeped out.

She also has a habit of standing right up in my personal space. For no reason. At all. She'll just come and stand really close to me and then not do anything, leaving me to edge away nervously. Once, I leaned tiredly against her shoulder, and she practically held me there, forcing my shoulder down, and then outright said that I wasn't moving. When I pointed out that she was deliberately not letting me move, she let go, but it was still freaky as fuck.

(At this point, I should perhaps note that Stacey is a trans woman who, while scrawny, is still stronger than me, which is why she was able to hold me down so well. Add in the fact that when I was dating Fox back when she still male-identified, she had a habit of staring at us and kind of leering at me and it adds a really creepy dimension, though she's assured me that she knows it was creepy. She's heavily involved with the Queer Avengers, the big activism group in New Zealand! It makes me really hesitant of saying anything in case the queer community kicks me out.)

Another thing she does I find creepy is that when we're in a group, she will put no effort into any conversation unless it's a conversation I'm involved in. Tim has commented he finds her impossible to talk to because any conversation with her ends instantly because she just won't put any effort in. She's only interested in talking to me. She'll also insert herself randomly into conversations I'm having with other people, no matter whether or not she's involved, in an unbelievably rude fashion. Sometimes it's useful, usually it's abrupt, rude and annoying.

And a couple of times, when I've been leaning on Tim, she's starting petting my head, and it seriously skeeves me out. Add in that I'm finding her unbelievably draining to be around, because I can't just be myself in case I end up encouraging her, and because I find her so fucking scary and creepy to be around, and she's seriously sapping my enjoyment of university.

What do I say? What can I say? I can't just ask her to not follow us around anymore. And I can't try and avoid her, either - all of our classes happen in pretty much the same stretch of university. Ack!



In good news, my brother's wife gave birth today! Yay! I'm now an aunt to a beautiful baby boy called Jack! :-D