15x08: To My 6th Grade Teacher

What happens when Delta Airlines sends four creators around the world to find out what is the true power of travel?

I love that both trips have very similar mental and social perks.

Very much so.

On both trips, their emotional well-being and social well-being went through the roof.

Find out more about how travel can support well-being on this special episode of The Psychology of Your 20s, presented by Delta.

Fly and live better.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Kevin and Rachel and Peanut M ⁇ Ms and an eight-hour road trip.

And Rachel's new favorite audiobook, The Cerulean Empress, Scoundrel's Inferno.

And Florian, the reckless yet charming scoundrel from said audiobook.

And his pecs glistened in the moonlight.

And Kevin, feeling weird because of all the talk about pecs, and Rachel handing him Peanut Min M's to keep him quiet.

Uh, Kevin, I can't hear.

Yellow, we're keeping it PG-13.

MMs, it's more fun together.

We're taking Let's Not Meet on the road again this year.

Phoenix, Arizona, I'll be at Rebel Lounge on November 17th.

St.

Paul, Minnesota at Turf Club on November 19th.

And Chicago, Illinois at Beat Kitchen on November 20th.

Get your tickets at let's not meetpodcast.com slash tour or follow the link in the show notes.

I'll see you there.

This podcast contains adult language and content.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you have a story to share, send it to let's not meetstories at gmail.com.

Enjoy the show.

This happened in August of 2024, in the middle of a gloomy Melbourne winter.

It still gives me chills when I think about it.

For context, I had just started a new job and was working from home while being trained over Microsoft Teams.

My husband was at work about 45 kilometers away, and I was completely alone in our new house.

We had only moved in a couple of months prior into developing the suburb.

At that that point, the street was practically deserted, just one neighbor beside me and another all the way at the other end of the road.

As for all of the homes in between, they were just empty lots and half-built houses.

On this day, at around 3 p.m., although it was still daytime, it was already dark due to the thick winter clouds.

I was sitting in our theater room, which faces the front of the house.

The blinds were partially shut, not enough for full privacy, but enough that you'd need to look very closely to see in.

And then, out of nowhere, I heard a knock.

Whoever was out there didn't even try the doorbell.

They decided to knock, which was odd.

Door-to-door salespeople usually ring the doorbell, and I wasn't expecting any parcels, so I got this immediate, uneasy feeling and checked our security cameras.

Standing right in front of my door was this huge, shirtless man.

He was clearly high or drunk as he swayed and peered aggressively through the narrow glass panels on my front door.

When I didn't respond, he started banging louder and yelling for me to open up.

His aggression was escalating fast,

and thank God we had a security screen door installed.

However, even with that barrier, I was still panicking.

I was home alone, and nobody else was nearby, so help was not going to be coming quickly.

I tried to keep calm, but then he wandered to a nearby construction site, grabbed a piece of wood, and began smashing it against my security door.

That was enough for me.

I called the cops.

They could hear the banging while I was on the call with them, and the operator immediately told me to get into the primary bedroom, lock that door, and then get into the bathroom and lock that door as well.

That way there would be two locked doors between me and this guy if he made it inside.

The next twenty minutes were the longest of my life.

This man did not give up.

He moved to the side gate which leads directly to the back of my house, and he climbed over it.

There are sliding glass doors back there, and when I thought about that it hit me.

They would be very easy to break, especially with whatever he grabbed from the construction site.

So I then rushed to shut the roller shutters.

As they were coming down, he saw them and lost it.

He began pounding on those now, furious and completely unhinged.

Then finally I heard sirens.

The police arrived and saw his car parked crooked in front of the house.

They then noticed the muddy footprints, which they followed to the side gate.

After they jumped to the gate as well, they caught him mid-range, standing at my back doors.

He was detained, but people under the influence have to be medically sobered up before arrest so that the cops aren't liable for anything that happens while they're high.

So they called an ambulance, took him away, and also towed his car.

A cop returned to my door later to explain the situation.

It turns out this guy was completely out of his mind and had mistaken my house for a drug house.

See, there was this house down the road, far from mine.

way down the street that had many shady happenings, and he mistook my house this one.

I remember calling my neighbor during all of this, telling her not to open her door no matter what, because she has two small kids and I didn't want anybody to get hurt.

This whole experience has left me shaken for weeks.

I still can't express how grateful I am that my husband insisted on installing roller shutters and reinforced security doors when we moved in.

If he hadn't, I don't want to think about what could have happened.

So to the coked out lunatic who tried to break into my house while I was all alone, let's not ever meet.

My brother, my parents, and I were on holiday in Portugal when this happened.

We were staying in the center of Lisbon and an Airbnb.

Now, my brother and I are avid weed smokers, and we wanted to smoke at night when we weren't with our parents.

Drugs are decriminalized in Portugal, as I'm sure many of you already know, so there are street dealers everywhere in Lisbon.

If you aren't with your parents and you look young but not uptight, you'll probably get asked if you want to buy some hash or coke every ten minutes.

Anyway, my brother and I picked up some hash on the first day and some bud on the second.

On the third, we were looking for some more, so we were approached by a man who bore a resemblance to DJ Khaled.

He looked just like him, only smaller and scary looking.

He asked us if we wanted bud, and we said yes.

He then told us to stay put on the street corner and that he would be back soon.

He returned about five minutes later and then led us into an alley.

We asked for twenty, but he handed us a few tens.

We said no, but he was persistent, and then tried to get us to buy two tens for thirty five Euros.

We told him no again, and explained that all we had was twenty Euros.

The guy's boss then showed up and gave him a few more ten bags.

The boss then leaned on the wall and watched us all as we looked at the bag.

Eventually we gave up and decided to get the tens.

As soon as we walked off, the boss blocked our way, and half a dozen other guys came into the alley.

They started to get aggressive and asked us to empty our pockets.

Luckily, all we took when we went to meet this guy was a singular note of 20 Euros and our phone.

I showed the guys my pockets, except for the one my phone was in.

One of the guys tried to reach into each pocket, but I didn't let him.

This was when the boss grabbed my shirt and pulled me towards him.

He told me not to fuck with him, and ordered us to take him to an ATM to empty our accounts.

I lightly pushed him off, and my brother refused to go to the ATM.

We told them we didn't have anything to give.

Then we impulsively took off and tried to get around them and out onto the streets.

They caught up to my brother, surrounded him, and grabbed his arm and tried to take his watch.

They also had other people waiting outside the alley, blocking the sidewalk.

One of them tried to grab my arm.

My brother shook the man who grabbed his watch and we took off running.

We went onto the road to get past the people blocking the streets and then dipped into another street to get away from them.

We were running for at least 10 minutes.

We didn't want to stop until we were sure that we had lost them.

The walk back to our Airbnb was a bit scary.

We were very close when we had initially started interacting with the DJ Khaled looking guy, but it turns out luck was on our side, and we made it back unscathed.

In the end, we still had the tens, our phones, our watches, and our lives.

We were a bit shaken up from the experience, but we also recognized that we were lucky we weren't harmed.

In conclusion, I'd like to offer a word of warning to any stoners on holiday in Portugal.

Some Some of the guys who offer you stuff on the streets are alright and have good weed.

Some sell fake stuff, and they're usually the ones who are out there trying to rob people.

Just stay safe, and if you ever go out there to pick something up, only take the amount of money that you intend to spend, nothing more.

Or just don't do it at all.

I'm a thirty-one-year-old female, and this happened when I was alone at work.

A male customer, who's a regular, suddenly came walking through our back door.

This seemed strange to me, as customers generally just use the front door, and the back door, which is kept unlocked, is for deliveries.

His demeanor also seemed strange, but I let that go, and I helped him with his purchase as we chit-chatted.

As he went to leave, he asked me if I wanted him to make sure the door was closed when he left, and I said, yes, please.

So he walked out the back door, and I heard the door open and close loudly, two times, as if he was ensuring that the door was completely shut.

Then I called my boyfriend and put him on speakerphone, as I let him know that I was going to be later than usual due to having a last-minute customer.

We were talking, when all of a sudden, the same customer came around the corner from our back room to ask me a follow-up question about something trivial.

This startled me.

I thought he had left.

I have no idea what he was doing back there between the two distinct door slams that I heard.

I don't know why he was just standing back there, but I have a gut feeling.

that the only reason he asked me something trivial was because I was on the phone with my boyfriend.

After that, I just couldn't shake the feeling that something bad could have happened to me.

For the most part my brain was telling me that I'm probably overreacting, since the man is a regular with whom I get along pretty well.

So on one hand, I feel like that man would never do anything to me, but on the other hand, his demeanor was just off that night.

It creeped me out when he reappeared after he made it seem like he left.

Part of me is having a tough time getting past that.

Why did he slam the door and pretend to leave?

What may have happened if I had just walked back there when he was lingering?

I told my boss about it the next day, and she had me go pick up a door bell from the nearest Lowe's so that our delivery drivers could ring instead of leaving the door unlocked.

My boss wanted to say something to him the next time he comes in, but I told her to just let it go, since we took measures to prevent this from happening again.

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In mid-summer of 2024, I lived in a small town in Oregon.

Before that, in January 2024, I was evicted from the house that I was living in with my mom and three siblings.

We struggled to sell the house in the days leading up to our eviction and never found a place to stay, so we resorted to living in a one-bedroom RV.

The RV was unregistered and broken down, so we were forced to live inside a storage unit without any power or running water.

My mother and younger 21-year-old sister were addicted to fentanyl, among other drugs.

We were always accompanied by their druggy friend group, which consisted of weird, perverted old men.

My mother was in and out of jail constantly for multiple evictions, including theft and a hit-and-run.

Yes, she quite literally ran somebody over, so by default, I was always tasked with looking after the two young children in my family who were nine and fifteen.

Together we experienced weeks, even months, of this cycle.

The continuous drugs, the withdrawals, the jail bails, the abuse.

It got so bad that we didn't have any money for food or water, so the kids spent days starving or surviving off of school food, and I relied on asking men online for money.

I would then take any of the money that I could get to the nearest gas station to buy food.

I always had to go somewhere within walking distance to get stuff for us, since the truck never had any gas and was always breaking down.

I met this one girl online who was 29.

She sent me money here and there for food and gas.

She was flirtatious with me and had obvious intentions of getting with me.

Now I should note that when I met this girl, I had freshly broken up with my ex-girlfriend of three years.

She dumped me in January before my family and I became homeless, so I wasn't looking for a relationship.

We spent a few weeks talking, and she ended up falling for me.

She also made it known that she was transgender, male to female, but she hadn't had any surgeries yet.

A few weeks into talking with her, she was aware of my abusive, homeless situation and offered for me to come down to Florida and live with her.

I was hesitant at first, but was desperate to get out of the situation that I was in.

I was also an immigrant in the U.S., as I'm from the UK.

I had been in the U.S.

illegally for 11 years, so I couldn't work.

I ended up taking her up on her offer, so she bought me a plane ticket that day and arranged for me to fly out two weeks later.

I told my family that I was going on a cruise ship vacation for two weeks and that I would be back after.

I wasn't planning on coming back.

See, my mother wouldn't have let me leave if I said I wasn't going to be returning.

Well, two weeks passed, and my mom drove me to the airport.

She begged me not to leave.

I ignored her pleas, of which she had many, and set out to travel alone for the first time.

I didn't even know how to navigate around the airport, but I was so desperate to get out of that situation, and my desperation made me willing to do potentially dangerous things.

I had a one-hour flight, followed by an eight-hour layover and then a six-hour flight right after that.

Mind you, I'm terrified to the brim of planes and heights, so the traveling was awful.

I almost missed my connecting flight, even after that long layover, since the airline changed the boarding gate and I wasn't even notified.

So I was extremely stressed out on top of everything else.

I landed in Florida at around 1 p.m.

I was wearing a black hooded onesie, as I had come from Oregon and it was freezing cold.

I was met by the intense humid heat of the Florida swamp.

I made my way through the airport, and this girl was waiting for me at the terminal entrance.

She picked me up and swung me around like we were together, and then proceeded to hold my hand as we walked to where she parked.

I was aggravated, as I was nicotine-deprived after a long journey, and I didn't enjoy the physical touch.

We got to the car where I yanked my hand away, so I could run over to the edge of the parking lot and throw up.

I was feeling crummy from the motion sickness and the jet lag.

I then lit up a cigarette as I reflected on everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

I also hadn't slept for at least a day, since I was too terrified to sleep on the plane or in the airport.

The drive to this girl's place from the airport was around two hours, and it was the most awkward drive I've ever experienced.

She was quiet, and I was going through a lot mentally, since I was in complete denial of being away from my nightmare situation back at home.

When we got to her town, she insisted that we get food and walk around the ocean pier.

I was starving but completely exhausted, so I asked if we could just get food and then go home and sleep.

She kept making excuses and said said that she wanted to give me a tour of beautiful Florida.

I was too exhausted to argue, so I just went along with it and I walked around town, still wearing my black onesie and over 100 degree weather like a zombie.

She was getting annoyed with me as I was in a mood, but in my defense, I had mentioned I wanted to go to sleep multiple times.

We got back to the house where I asked where I would be sleeping, and she motioned to a single bed where she also slept.

She was also sharing a small RV with a male roommate.

The bed that we had to share was put up as she had cats that would pee on the bedding.

I asked her to put it down, but she kept making more excuses and suggested that we take a walk around her neighborhood so I could get used to the area.

So we went walking around and I chain smoked as I took in the scenery.

During the entire walk, she was very touchy and trying to hold my hand.

When we returned to the RV an hour later, she was refusing to let me sleep, and we got in her truck where I sat in the passenger seat and smoked some more.

She joined in and started chain smoking as well, but she was smoking joints instead of cigarettes.

Hours went by, and I ended up bawling my eyes out in front of her.

She got annoyed with me and told me to just go back home.

I was all over the place mentally, and sleep exhaustion was making it worse.

We then went on another walk that night.

It had been well over twenty four hours since I had slept at this point, but we walked to a little pier where she was kissing me and holding me.

I made her aware that I didn't like this, but she kept insisting.

We went back to her place at around ten PM and she finally ended up pulling the bed down, and I fell asleep immediately.

I honestly can't remember much of the next few days, but they consisted of random activities around town and a lot of good food.

She didn't work and relied on her roommate for income.

They had a weird arrangement where he agreed to give her all his money and he would just work and play video games.

I suppose she took care of him in a sense, since she pretty much ran the household, but this seemed like a really strange situation to me.

About a week after I arrived, things started to worsen.

She was snapping at me over every little thing.

She was jealous of people being in my DMs, belittling my drama, and saying mean things about my family.

Don't get me wrong, they were truly awful, but that still isn't something that you want to hear from someone who is still essentially a stranger.

We played a few games together, and she got ragey at them, which also triggered this traumatic feeling from me, as I had a stepdad previously who would video game rage.

I'd I'd have to listen to him all night as he would go at it, and he'd eventually take that rage and go after my mom.

A few more days passed, and she informed me that she had a son who lived with her family, as she couldn't take care of him in her current living situation.

She asked me to come along with her to her family's house and meet everyone, including her son.

I told her that it wasn't a good idea, as I didn't want him or anyone else to get the wrong impression of me, especially since it was obvious that she was into me and thought of me as her girlfriend.

Plus, I needed alone time as I never got any of that living with my family.

She threw the biggest fit, but she eventually left to go see her family.

She texted me the entire time she was gone, and I kid you not, she returned less than two hours later with all of them.

She brought her son inside to meet me and everything.

I was furious, but it wasn't the the child's fault, so I gently greeted him, but made a lot of attempts to hide in the bathroom, or in the truck, to smoke.

They left eventually, and that was it for the day.

A few days after that, she kept trying to get me to go on walks with her to her roommate's workplace to smoke.

I kept asking to stay and have some time alone, but each time I requested this, she would slam the door as she left and message me the entire time she was gone.

At this point our arguing was getting worse and worse, and she was getting more and more violent as she continued lashing out over the smallest things.

One of these lash outs happened when she was trying to fix the air conditioner.

She was getting frustrated by the heat, so she lashed out at me as she begged me to stand over her with a blow dryer.

The dryer only blew out hot air, so I told her it was a bad idea and suggested that she step outside for a bit to smoke and calm down.

She freaked out at me completely since I refused to stand over her with a blow dryer.

So I left and sat outside in her truck.

She later came out, still in this mood, to smoke in the truck.

She was throwing things around in the truck as she smoked in awkward silence with me.

Our arguing continued to get worse.

I refused any sexual activity with her, which made her take an extreme measure and buy libido-boosting gummies to help me get in the mood.

This made me very uncomfortable.

She also made these weird remarks about being an OnlyFans creator, so she would say that she knew what she was doing in an attempt to tempt me.

We got into an argument over how I wasn't showing her any affection.

I was tired of arguing, so I got into bed and attempted to sleep.

She then threw a fit and told me that I could go to sleep once we were done arguing.

I just turned over in bed and pulled the blankets over me completely while I tried to ignore her screaming.

I was bawling my eyes out under the covers, and I regretted coming down here, as I was two thousand miles away from my family with this crazy stranger.

She kept storming in and out of the R V, slamming the door each time as she continued yelling at me.

This went on for about fifteen minutes, and the last time she came back inside, she ripped the blankets off of me and forced me to go outside and talk in her truck.

I refused.

I told her I didn't feel like it, and I just wanted to sleep.

She wasn't letting up, though.

So I got up and zombie walked out to the truck, where I smoked a cigarette and blacked out while she screamed at me.

She left eventually and went inside the house and blasted music so loud that it vibrated the truck outside.

I stayed outside in the truck and cried for about two hours.

During that time, I also ordered some food, so she came to eat with me.

Then finally we went inside and slept.

The next day she begged me to go to Gatorworld with her.

Gatorworld is a place in Florida where you can see all kinds of alligators, amongst other animals.

I didn't want to go, as it was a two-hour trip and I was exhausted from all of the fighting that we had done the night before.

She begged and begged, so I caved and went with her.

It was awkward the entire time.

I had to pay for everything, with the little money that I earned from from my generous friends online.

She spent all of her money on pot, even after knowing about all of my drug trauma.

She was doing the exact same thing my mom did.

She was spending all her money on drugs, leaving us broke.

Whenever she was out of weed, she seemed to be going through a withdrawal, which was doing nothing to help my healing process.

This concerned me, as I had just gotten out of a situation like this, so I was less than enthused to be in another situation that was so similar.

A few days after Gatorworld, I was feeling like I was living in hell.

Our arguing had become constant, and I was always feeling sleep-deprived.

I was tired, and not just physically.

On one of my last nights there, she took me to the beach, as I am in love with the beach.

We argued during the entire drive there, and after she parked, she got out and quickly walked so far ahead of me that I was struggling to keep up with her.

This wasn't ideal as I had no idea where where I was going.

Once we reached the beach, she didn't exchange a single word with me.

She just stayed away from me before eventually walking into the water fully clothed.

She just stood there in the water for this awkwardly long time, like she thought she was in a movie or something.

When we walked back to the car, she walked far ahead of me, but she eventually stopped and turned back towards me and continued the argument.

I was so over it.

I snapped back and I made a comment about her son.

I knew I shouldn't have done this, and I knew I messed up the second I said what I said.

She replied entirely in curses, and she called me so many vile names.

She also told me that I should be living in the streets.

Despite this, I ended up getting in the car with her, and when we got back to the R V, I packed my stuff and told her that I would sleep in the truck until morning, when I'd have money transferred to me for an Uber and a hotel.

As I started packing, she got on her knees and began to beg me to stay.

I stayed but started making plans to have my best online friend of six years come and pick me up later in the week so that I could stay with her and her parents instead.

The next night we got into yet another argument.

and this one was the worst yet.

She was yelling at me while we were walking around in the neighborhood, and I begged her to take it inside as the neighbors were watching.

This was embarrassing for me, but then she got more violent.

The fight was kind of a blur, so I ended up snapping at her, and then I started yelling.

I was screaming back at her for once.

It felt completely involuntary.

It was like I was having some kind of manic episode.

When we got back to the RV, I grabbed my stuff, which was still packed, and I went into the truck and called my best friend.

I was crying uncontrollably, and she kindly offered to pick me up in the morning.

But I couldn't stand to stay another night with this girl, so I scrounged up enough money and called for an Uber to take me to a low-end hotel.

Then I grabbed my stuff and got into an Uber with this older man who looked kind of creepy, but I didn't even care.

I needed to get out of this situation.

My Uber dropped me off at the hotel.

I felt relieved as I was checking in, even though the manager at the front desk told me that if I noticed anything quote-unquote creepy, I needed to report it back to her.

As I walked to my room, the hotel seemed like something out of Grand Theft Auto.

Drug deals were going on everywhere, and people were yelling at each other.

Once I reached my room, I was quick to get inside and out of sight from the older man watching me outside.

I locked the door behind me immediately and shoved a chair up against it, as well, before closing the blinds.

Then I got into bed and plugged in my laptop to watch a movie.

It was peaceful.

The bed was comfortable, but the room was riddled with roaches.

They were everywhere.

I didn't even want to open my bag, as I was afraid of them crawling inside my stuff.

Even though I was in such a place, I had the best sleep I had had in months.

The next morning I was picked up by my friend and her father, and we drove back to her house, where they set me up in the garage.

I then had the best month after that, as her family treated me amazingly.

It was the best month I had had in my entire life.

My last interaction with this crazy girl was when I had to go back to her place and collect my passport, which she had kept from me.

I eventually got all of my remaining stuff and I never saw her again.

So, to the crazy girl in Florida, let's not meet again.

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I'm a 24-year-old female, and I'm a physical therapist who mostly works with elderly patients in their homes to give them treatment, rehabilitation, etc.

This happened a while ago.

I had been seeing one of my patients, Lynn, an 82-year-old woman, every week for around three months without any issues.

Each week, I would arrive at the government housing building where Lynn lived.

I always had to sign in with the security guards at the front desk and then take the elevator up to her floor.

Lynn lived with her friend named Peter, who was a 64-year-old male.

Both of them spoke Mandarin, with very limited English.

I don't speak Mandarin, so I used an interpreter for the first few appointments, and once our communication was streamlined, we got by with limited small talk and demonstrations of the exercises I needed her to do.

Lynn usually answered the door when I arrived, and I wouldn't see Peter at all.

He would either be out or in his bedroom.

However, on this day, when the door was opened for me, I was surprised to see that it was Peter greeting me.

Peter told me that Lynn was in the bathroom and shouldn't be long.

Then he suggested that I come inside and get set up while I waited for her.

This didn't raise any alarm bells.

Like I said, I had been seeing Lynn for months without any concerns.

Peter went back to his bedroom, leaving me alone in the living room to set up the equipment for my session with Lynn.

After I had finished setting up, I sat down and and waited.

After only a minute or so, Peter came back out of his bedroom and began excitedly talking to me in Mandarin.

I politely tried to explain that I didn't understand what he was saying, as I don't speak Mandarin.

He then took out his phone and pulled up a translating app, which would translate his words as he spoke into the microphone into a text that I could understand.

For ease of telling this story I will recount as if we were speaking directly to each other, but keep in mind that everything we were saying was translated for one another on this app.

Peter began by asking me, Do you massage?

This alarmed me slightly since I'm very paranoid, and I've watched way too many crime documentaries.

I immediately thought that it was suspicious to ask this question.

On the other hand, I am a physical therapist, so the question could have been perceived as perfectly valid.

I thought that he was most likely asking on on behalf of Lynn, and that maybe she wanted a massage alongside her exercise, which is quite normal with a lot of my patients, so I replied, yes I do.

This turned out to be a mistake because Peter then said, perfect, my brother and I just opened a massage shop.

I want you to work for me.

I politely declined his offer, saying that I was happy with my current job and not looking for any additional work.

Peter then continued insisting and remarked that I was a beautiful girl who would be perfect for the job.

I kept declining, and tried to stay as polite as possible.

As this continued, he seemed like he wasn't going to take no for an answer, so I began to feel extremely uncomfortable.

It got to the point where I played it off, as the translations stopped making sense and I couldn't understand what he was saying.

I was just praying that my patient would come out of the bathroom so the interaction would end.

Finally, my patient did, and at first, I felt immense relief and thought, great, we can start our session, and this guy can leave me alone.

This relief was only short-lived, though, since Lynne immediately asked me if I was going to work in the massage shop.

I told her I wasn't, and gave her the same speech I gave Peter.

They finally dropped it, and we started our session.

Then I gestured for Lynn to sit down in the chair I had set up opposite mine and started leading her through exercises.

Peter sat behind me on the couch.

He was approximately two meters away.

I was still a bit on edge about our conversation, so I was uncomfortable about having him sit right behind me.

As I said, he normally would be in the bedroom, or not home at all.

I eventually started to relax as it seemed that the topic of working for Peter had fully been dropped, and things were somewhat back to normal.

So I told myself that I was just being paranoid, and that he probably just wanted to hire me as a new employee to get his business started.

After about five minutes, there was a knock at the door.

Whoever was at the door let themselves in, entering the living room, and stood over me and Lynn.

It was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, so I was thinking he was likely a relative of Lynn or Peter.

Oddly, though, he didn't even say hello to Lynn or Peter after he walked in.

He didn't even announce his reason for being there.

He simply stood there, staring at me.

This was when I decided to stop doubting myself since it seemed like something very weird was going on.

Lynn stopped doing her exercises and asked the man So, what do you think?

As she gestured towards me.

The man replied,

Beautiful.

She's perfect.

Obviously, at this point, every goddamn alarm bell in my brain and body was ringing and telling me to get out of there, But for some reason I froze.

I just kept sitting there with my mind racing, wondering how I could get out of this situation.

I also think I froze because I wasn't sure if I'd be overreacting if I got up and left.

In hindsight, this is absolutely one hundred percent exactly what I should have done.

The man then sat with Peter behind me, and all three of them began speaking in Mandarin.

I could understand just a few words that Lynne said in English, speckled throughout the Mandarin, and the things she was saying about me.

She said my name, age, the fact that I have a sister, and the fact that my family lives overseas, and so much more.

She essentially shared all of the information I had told her during our past few appointments.

The man then got up and asked me for my WhatsApp.

I told him I didn't use WhatsApp, so then he asked me for WeChat.

I told him I didn't use that either.

And he continued to ask about various communication platforms.

This gave me the courage to get up and leave.

I stood up very suddenly and said, I'm sorry, but I have to go.

I then dashed out of there and down the elevator as quickly as I could without looking back.

Once I got downstairs and was outside the building, I rushed straight to my car which was parked slightly up the street.

After I got in, I was just sitting there trying to process and make sense of what just happened.

Then the younger man suddenly came out from the same exit I had just left through.

He looked each way as though he were looking to see which direction I had headed in.

But after not seeing any sign of me, he ultimately walked away, in the opposite direction from where I was parked, thankfully.

I then called my manager and told her the entire story.

She agreed that I would never be going back there, nor would any of the staff.

I still don't know exactly what these people's intentions were with me.

Perhaps it was an informal job offer, but there were so many red flags about this situation.

I'm just grateful that I was able to get out of there when I did.

I've had several creepy and unsettling encounters with guys on the bus before, but I've never experienced the same from another woman.

This really took the cake for me.

This story is from a few years ago, when I was working at a different job and I lived a few cities over.

I took an hour long bus ride on two separate buses every day to go to work.

I had just gotten on the first bus as per usual, and I was sitting right near the front.

As the bus continued its route, more and more people got on, and this woman ended ended up sitting right next to me.

Many people who were boarding the bus headed to the back, and there were several unoccupied seats available.

Now, I didn't mind that she sat down right next to me, even though there were several other empty seats.

I just kept reading my book on my phone.

She quickly struck up a friendly conversation.

I didn't really think anything of this when we were conversing because she just asked me what my name was and how I was doing.

I asked her the same questions and returned to be polite.

She seemed like she had been having a rough week, maybe even a rough month.

She started asking me where I was headed and other questions like that.

I told her I was going to work and that I took the bus every day.

She asked a couple of other mundane questions and I asked some as well.

It was a pretty nice bus interaction, especially considering past experiences that I had had.

When we finally got to the bus terminal, I started transferring buses, and we found out that we were getting on the same bus once again.

She invited me to sit next to her again, until one of us had to deboard.

We resumed our conversation once we were situated, and we asked more personal questions.

I'm a pretty open person, and I can typically carry on with talking forever, so I didn't think much of this.

She asked my age, I was twenty at the time, and then she told me that she was thirty.

She asked about my family and their names and ages, and told me about hers as well.

She said a lot of things that depicted a very rough family life and a bad living situation.

I felt a lot of empathy for her, and when she asked to stay in contact I willingly gave her my number.

We sent each other a text to make sure that our number exchange worked, and then she got off the bus at her stop.

A few minutes later I realized that I didn't recognize my surroundings, and I had gotten on the wrong bus.

But luckily, I was still in the same city, so I got off and I biked the rest of the way to work.

I was only a minute late.

Then things got weird.

After my six-hour shift, I looked at my phone and I saw that I had two missed calls and about a dozen messages from her.

Her messages were mostly asking why I wasn't answering and why I was ignoring her.

I finally responded and said, sorry I was working.

I couldn't look at my phone.

She then proceeded to text me constantly, almost hourly, for the next two days.

By the third, things had gotten even stranger since she started calling me by a whole bunch of terms of endearment.

She was calling me things like sweetheart, babe, and honey.

I politely asked her to stop, because it made me uncomfortable.

She stopped for a day, but then she started doing it again.

She became flirtier.

Then, out of nowhere, she asked me not to block her, even though that wasn't something I had begun contemplating yet.

I really should have, since corresponding with her was exhausting.

But I also wasn't thinking straight since I had been focused on exams and work.

It made me really uncomfortable and confused, though.

So I went and talked to some family who I knew would give it to me straight and bluntly tell me what I should be doing.

They were horrified by how much information I had given this stranger, especially since she was ten years older than me, and getting increasingly flirty with me.

She knew my name, my number, and the names of my family, the city that I lived in, where I worked, and one of the buses I used for transportation daily.

By the end of that conversation, I was freaking out, but I was also trying to rationalize a situation.

I am a bit of a people pleaser, so I felt bad about needing to block her, even though I probably should have done so sooner.

Eventually, my father stepped in and blocked her on my phone for me so that I wouldn't feel as guilty about it.

We then contacted my work, who kindly transferred me to a different building just to be safe.

Thankfully, I haven't heard from her since.

It's been about twelve years now, and I know the person that I'm about to talk about doesn't work at the school that I attended anymore, thankfully.

I don't know what could possess an adult woman, over fifty, no less, to torment a child to their breaking point.

Maybe she was just a miserable person who was projecting her own experience in school.

Whatever the case may be, it seemed like she was targeting certain people just to bring herself up.

How she treated me and others was not only unprofessional, but very cruel and damaging.

I was a good student, and Miss M had taught some of my family members in years prior.

Unlike me, my cousins and siblings are rowdy and can be a handful.

She had words with my family before, so by the time I came along I was essentially a symbol of my family to her.

Because of this, she would take her anger out on me.

I was always meek and obedient, which made me a good target.

Miss M would humiliate me any chance that she got.

She would bring me to the front of the class to tell me that I was stupid and call me ugly.

She always pointed out when my legs weren't shaved.

She always told me that I looked like a boy.

I had long hair, but I didn't wear makeup at that age.

If I ever asked a question, she would respond to me very slowly, and she talked to me like I was an actual dog.

The list goes on and on, and just in case being a punching bag wasn't enough, she actively encouraged other kids to make fun of me as well.

This only further isolated me from everyone.

As such, I grew to fear any interaction with her.

I feared my classmates as well.

A boy in my class was being relentless and made me cry one day, so I retaliated and threw my pencil at him.

I was berated heavily and treated even worse after that, so I learned it would be best to just shut down and just take it all.

The grade slipped, and I cried every day at home.

I kept most of it to myself, which Miss M probably knew that I would.

My parents tried to get my class switched, but the school refused, since Miss M acted like an angel around other adults.

Also, the other classes were apparently at capacity, so I wouldn't even be able to switch.

There was this one time where she made fresh hot cocoa for the class the day before Christmas break.

When she gave one to me, I was scared, so I accidentally knocked it over and I spilled it all over myself.

It was scalding hot, and instead of being concerned, she let out a flurry of screams and threatened that I had better clean it up quickly.

She told me I better be spotless or I would be sorry.

I did as I was told and ignored the searing pain in my foot.

I was not allowed to call to get a change of clothes, and I was the only one not allowed to have more.

The pain in my foot throbbed the entire day.

The pain never let up, but I was so terrified, so I never said anything, and didn't shed a single tear, even though it hurt like hell.

When I got home and pulled my sock off, my skin came off with with it from the burn.

My mother was livid.

She finally stood up for me.

After Christmas break, Miss M was overly sugary to me, as she asked, Why didn't you tell me about your foot, sweetie?

She partnered this with being overly accommodating.

This scared me.

I thought that it was a trap.

But to my surprise, this behavior lasted about two weeks, since she must have had her ass handed to her.

After that, she wasn't as bad as before, but she still sought out ways to crush my spirit.

On the last day of school, she refused to let me take any pictures of her.

I asked to take one since I wanted one to burn.

She was very grouchy towards me that day, almost acting defeated.

I think it was because, although my grades were bad, I barely skated by and I got to move on to middle school.

She was hoping that I would fail.

After sixth grade, I stopped caring about school.

I failed a year and barely skirted by other years before landing in a dropout prevention program in high school.

I had a few friends, none of whom I kept in contact with.

I found it hard to trust teachers or authority figures after I had Miss M.

Before her, I actually tried, and I actually cared.

All of the teachers I had were disappointed in me because of how well I performed in math and on tests.

I've never had test anxiety, so they wanted me to be in the math leads one year, but I just didn't care.

I've always attributed at least one part of this to Miss M,

because she changed my life for the worse.

The psychological damage Miss M did to me cut pretty deep.

It's hard to convey in a brief story what it truly was like to be her student for a whole year.

She tore down all the confidence I had.

She made me afraid to trust anyone, and she made me believe I was worthless.

She made me feel every insult and criticism to the bone.

She made me close myself and learn to take the abuse.

She made me believe I was completely alone and had nobody in my corner.

I've tried to grow past it, but it's been a hard thing to overcome.

I don't know what could go through an adult's mind that would make them see a vulnerable little girl as a target for their sick games.

I'm glad she was finally removed years later, and I hope the others that she did this to are now living happy lives without having her as even a passing thought.

I guess one thing she happened to teach us was that there are bad people out there.

We may have struggled with it, but we pushed on.

Miss M, you're not a teacher.

You're an abusive sociopath who used your power of authority to tear down and relentlessly torture children.

I hated you then, but as an adult, I just feel sad for you.

I hope the stain that you left on the world is eventually wiped away.

May we never meet again.

Thanks for listening.

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Don't forget to get tickets to the live shows November 17th, Phoenix, Arizona at Rebel Lounge, November 19th, St.

Paul, Minnesota at Turf Club, and November 20th in Chicago, Illinois at Beat Kitchen.

You can purchase tickets by following the links in the show notes or going to let's not meetpodcast.com slash tour.

Finally, be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the old time radio cast at CrypticCountyPodcasts.com.

This week you have heard shirtless drugged out stranger tried to break in while I was home alone by Nebula Nachos.

A warning about street dealers in Portugal by Tommy's Planet.

I can't shake the feeling that something bad could have happened by Intrepid Middle 5047.

Roommate Gone Wrong by Dot Sushi,

My Elderly Patient and Her Housemate Tried to Recruit Me by Glum Ad 6682, I Thought She Just Wanted a Friend by Dreaming and Living, and finally to my sixth grade teacher by Gecko, send your stories into Let'sNotMeetStories at gmail.com if you'd like to hear them on the show.

All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

Let's Not Meet a True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online.

We'll see you all next week for a brand new episode.

Everybody, stay safe.

When I was fifteen years old, I was friends with a girl who we'll call Bernadette.