The 4 Steps to Saying No to a Creeper and/or Stalker

*Guest post by Jennie Cohn*

These four steps came about while I was having girl talk in the suite with Jasmine about community college. We were sharing experiences of people creeping on us, and not understanding why they felt the need to do so. I came up with the following 4 steps off the top of my head, but they are definitely based on real experiences!

Step 1: RECOGNIZE! Recognize the awkward and/or creepy feeling he is sending your way. Recognize the bad vibes coming from this dude.

Step 2: SEEK HELP! Call in assistance to take you away from the situation. If there are firemen, policemen, coworkers, brothers-in-law, friends, ask them for help! Call in others if they are around to help you move away from the awkward situation.

Step 3: BE FIRM! You just gotta be firm and lay down the law. Say, “You’re all up in my personal space and I don’t like this, so you need to step off.” Be firm and honest, but not in a mean way.

Steve Durgin suggests using a phrase similar to the following: “You know, I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’re creepin’”

Step 4: GET PHYSICAL! This is the last step. It’s a last resort. This is not really plausible in real life unless they’re threatening your life. If they are threatening your life, get kung fu, get ninja on him. Tell them, “Step off or I will karate chop you!” Use physical self-defense to deter their creeping.

Furthermore, if he’s at your window stalking up on you, you gotta close your blinds. If you don’t have blinds, run out of your house and go to target and get yoself some blinds! Grab a wrench to protect yourself, and call 911. If 911 doesn’t answer, call me.

If you don’t have a wrench, Allenha Holden suggests hairspray. Caleb Gore adds that it might be a good idea to couple that with a lighter.

I would just like to say to all of the readers: sometimes the creepers don’t know they’re creepin’. In these cases, just lay down the law. And if you tell them and they don’t get it, then you REALLY need to call in backup. You just gotta be honest. If someone says to you, like they did to me, “I thought about you the entire time I was incarcerated, and my goal over the semester was to make you my girlfriend,” then you just need to tell them, “No. I don’t like you that way and I’m gonna call 911. You’re creepin and I don’t wanna go there.”

Cautious of Creepers,

Jennie Cohn