TL;DR Trust me, it's worth taking 3 minutes of your time to read. This is what you call a butt-puckering "holy shit I dodged a bullet" moment:

I've known this girl around 2 years now. I'm mid 30s, she's early 30s.

We've been intimate but never officially dating. She's actually been a pretty good bud over the span of the time I've known her. Fishing buddy, hiking buddy, hanging out buddy, whatever.

Her lease was up at her old place and there was a span of about a month where she'd be between jobs and houses. And...DOH!...yes, I fucked up. I offered for her to stay at my place for that short time between.

That was fuck up #1.

Fuck up #2 was allowing her to drag me into a "why did we never date" conversation that quickly...well, you can guess how that quickly escalated on her end. Her feelings of inadequacy, feelings of rejection, feelings of just being a slut...blah, blah, blah, feels, feels, feels.

I remained silent through most of it. Only speaking to calmly re-explain that I'm not interested in a relationship with anyone at this point (basically kindly telling her she's a plate and always will be).

But a man can only take so much yelling and crying and bullshit before he has to just GTFO and take his problems out under the bar in the squat rack so...

Fuck up #3 was me leaving my house to go to the gym to blow off some steam and clear my head.

After about an hour and a half at the gym, I pull back into the driveway and go to the front door, put in my key...doesn't work. Go to the side door and it's slightly ajar...with deadbolt components strewn all over the patio and inside the door.

This bitch tried to change the locks on the doors of my house while I was gone.

I go inside and she's obviously frantic. She threw a tape measure (where the fuck did she even get it? It wasn't even my tape measure) at me and proceeded to scream and lunge at me.

Each time I backed away with my hands up. I remained calm and tried to calm her down but she was having none of it.

I'm not a huge guy...190lbs...but she's a 120lb little blonde female that is, at this point, nothing but hate and venom and swinging limbs.

There is no way I was going to touch her. I can see the headlines now "Ex military bodybuilder batters tiny blonde woman"

The only time I touched her was to deflect her blows and eventually back out of the door from which I came in.

I considered calling the cops but I couldn't see how that would ever end well for me (it certainly never has before and I'm about the most cookie-cutter, upstanding guy in the world).

I ended up just sitting outside on the front porch to let her wind herself down, which she kinda did.

She eventually comes out and hints that she has bruises on her arms and "someone needs to know because you're not going to get away with grabbing and hitting me."

That's when I dropped the bombshell: I asked if she knew that there's not one but THREE beautiful little Dropcams that were pointed directly at every single area that I went into once I was in the house.

The foot path I took every second I was in the house was no accident...I know exactly where those cameras point and what areas they pick up visual and audio the best

They cover as much of the first floor of the house as I can manage with just three (yes, ordering more now) and they do it all in full color 720p WITH sound.

At one point (and yeah i have to pat myself on the back for this) I made sure to mute the TV so I could be more certain they would pick up every word that was said.

All I did was calmly open my laptop (did this still in view of the cameras, of course), open up the Nest site, and show her the entire episode...her screaming, crying, attacking me, and me doing nothing in retaliation...

She was appalled at her actions and within 45 minutes of packing up some clothes, she was gone.

She's now five states away at her parents' house where she will remain until her new place is available.

There has been extremely little texting back and forth but I made sure to say, in no uncertain terms, that her and I will never, EVER be in private together again for as long as I live.

And if, for some reason, there is any reason to ever speak face-to-face it will be in a very, VERY public place with an objective third party there to verify everything "to keep everyone's safety and comfort at the highest level."

LESSONS LEARNED

I think you already know but this was a very loud and clear reminder that this is the world we live in, guys. This girl was a "good friend" (fucking yeah right) and she knew exactly what she was doing and exactly what kind of harm those allegations would have on my life.

Cam up. You dont have to get Dropcams (they're a little pricey, especially when monthly fees are factored in and the fact that Google owns Nest gives me the privacy heebie-jeebies) but get SOMETHING.

If you plan to put them in the bedroom (I am after this incident) then I'd make it a practice to let any woman that goes in there know that there's security cams "but no, I don't watch that shit its just because my cousin had a bad breakin about a year ago and it sketched me out so I had them installed" Whatever works for you. Most women will forget about it in minutes anyway. Everyone is pretty used to being recorded these days anyway.