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I've had a handful of interesting characters enter my life over the four years that I've kept my personal blog, Molls She Wrote. Many of these folks are now friends, a couple are maybe sort of enemies, but only one of them can be called The Most Creative/Romantic Stalker in the Game.

He found me in late 2007. When I first started working for Gawker Media, specifically Defamer, I was advised by someone at the company to start a personal blog and update it regularly so that I could build a name for myself online. I set up a link to my Vox account on the masthead of Defamer, and traffic started trickling in. I never really gave much thought to what kind of people would be finding me from that point on.

At first I was embarrassed by the idea of an audience because they would mostly be reading about boys who had hurt my feelings. There were also many unflattering photos of myself in various states of intoxication as well as mp3s of the crappy music I still listen to today. For the most part I pretended that no one was reading and that the only thing to be embarrassed about was the idea that anyone cared.


One afternoon as I was working at my desk, I got an email from a guy named Shane. He told me that he read an entry about me being afraid to die alone and that he wanted to take me out to coffee so that maybe that wouldn't ever happen. He said he was 28 and worked in computers, which both seemed really mature yet unexotic in a safe way. Plus, he attached pics and even though they were kind of dimly light shots, he kind of looked like a foxy dude. Semi-intriguing yet slightly off, right?


I was flattered, but ultimately I told him that I was uncomfortable going out with a stranger. After all, it's common sense to not rush off and meet someone as soon as they offer to keep you from dying alone, especially when all they know about you is what they see on your blog and YouTube videos.

A couple of days later, he sent another email. It arrived while I was packing my suitcase for vacation. He offered an enticing description of a scavenger hunt he had set up in my neighborhood. He first asked me to go to a temple not far from my house, walk inside, go straight to the back, look under the small table on the side and grab my first clue. As intrigued as I was, I explained that there was no way I could go on this scavenger hunt. I was running behind schedule as it was, but he emailed back within seconds asking me to "Please go."

When I arrived at the temple, it was locked. My face burned a little with frustration as I assumed that this Shane dude was messing with me because I rejected him. I emailed him back from my phone asking him what his damage was, and he apologized profusely and sent me directions to the second location. I was annoyed, but I gave it a shot anyway and found my way to a semi-fancy hotel. Behind the desk was a man who handed me a Crate & Barrel box that had a card on top with further instructions. These led me to a statue by Wilshire and Irolo.

While on my way to the statue and the next clue, I opened the box and discovered two wine glasses. Immediately I thought about the possibility that a murderer was guiding me around town and would eventually kill me, but whoever says that's not exciting is a liar. Two empty wine glasses are so suggestive, especially when you start wondering if he's waiting somewhere with a wine bottle which may or may not be safe to drink.

There was a single rose taped under the statue alongside another note, this one leading me to a florist. When I arrived at the third location, the florist was at lunch and her son asked me to leave my number. No alarms went off as I gave the kid my number and walked next door to the CVS to get gum and magazines for the plane.

Fifteen minutes later my phone rang and it was the florist telling me to come back. When I walked into her shop there were a dozen yellow roses sitting out on the counter. I immediately started grilling her to find out what this guy was all about. She only said that he was cute and polite and that he'd paid with a credit card.

I wrote Shane a quick thank you note for setting up the scavenger hunt, as I was raised to thank people for their efforts. I soon left to New York and forgot about whole thing. As soon as I came back, however, the emails started again and he asked if he could please take me out for coffee. Just as I did the first time he emailed, I turned him down, but he was persistent and eventually I accepted. I agreed to meet him at a coffee shop a few miles from my apartment for one quick, friendly cup of coffee.

I was the first to arrive. I smoked a cigarette and talked to a homeless person to kill time before ducking into the shop to take a look around for any guy that might be there on his own looking like he's waiting to meet his internet prey. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I figured an "I'm looking for someone" face would call attention to me. No one budged. I ordered my own latte so he couldn't try and pay for it and found a place to sit.

The first two minutes were easily passed by glancing at a newspaper someone had left at the table in front of me. But I quickly lost interest in that and I was stuck with the reality of what I was doing in the coffee shop in the first place. I was basically waiting for a stranger to arrive, some blog reader who I didn't really want to meet in the first place.

I got a little ticked off at Shane for being late, but I was also just as furious with myself. There I was, a twenty-three-year-old woman letting some strange man browbeat me into meeting him at a coffee shop. Why was I even there? Because I somehow owed it to him to be there because he read something that I wrote in my downtime, most likely while intoxicated? This dude came at me like he was trying to wife me in his initial email, but I think husband material runs on time.

I left that coffee shop and went straight home. There was no way I was going to act reasonably toward him once he showed up and I wanted to spare us both. I left and I turned off my cell phone so I wouldn't have to see his frantic emails coming in at whatever moment he finally arrived to the shop and discovered that I wasn't there.

And there were emails. Three of them right away. The first was a, "Hey, I'm here. Sorry I'm late. You here yet?"

The second arrived fifteen minutes later saying, "Hey, I'm not sure if you left before I got here or not. I can't apologize enough for making you wait; especially after all I put you through to get you to meet me. Not normally my M.O."

The third was a much longer and much more desperate sounding explanation as to why he was late. I responded to that one with a couple of lines stating that it was fine, I wasn't mad, I just wasn't down with meeting dudes online and his tardiness felt like a sign that I needed to bolt.

The next morning I was starting my day as usual when I got a call from an unknown number. I answered it, and an older sounding man told me to please hold because he was about to perform a singing telegram for me. I heard a click and the music started. Immediately I recognized it as the instrumental to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message."

I have never been more aware of the straight up weirdness of a moment as I was when an elderly man rapped an apology along to the familiar beat. "Now listen, Molly/Shane thinks you're tops/and he's sorry he was late to the coffee shop."

I sent an email to Shane thanking him for the singing telegram and asked him how he'd gotten my number. He said he'd paid off the florist from the scavenger hunt to figure out a way to get it from me. He also said that he knew that he'd almost definitely crossed every line he could have and that he was going to leave me alone from now on.

He did leave me alone, for the most part. Occasionally he'd pop up in my blog comments and he may have written two entries in a blog he started about the experience of trying to win me over. If he did write them, they're long gone, as Vox shut its virtual doors in 2010.

I have a fantasy that he started that other blog and met a girl in the comments. She was really into the whole "dating people from the Internet" thing and they met IRL and hit it off really well and that's why I haven't heard from him from time to time. He's off somewhere, way too in love with his own little blog reader for me to even pop up on his radar.

In the four years since all of this happened, I've met many people who've read my blog, but none of them have been as creative or stalkery as Shane. And no guy that I've ever met "in real life" has ever set up a scavenger hunt for me. I guess I still owe him a couple of thank yous: one for not murdering me, and another for making me feel so special. Afraid for my life, sure, but also very special.