3 years ago at a park I regularly frequent, an older man (probably in his 60’s) randomly struck up friendly chit chat. He said he’s here on a temporary work contract from across the country. Casual small talk eventually led to him joining me on my walks and striking long conversations with me while I would be in the middle of reading my book. I can tell he’s lonely and as a taken woman I don’t feel comfortable befriending men, let alone men easily twice my age. He usually did most of the talking and spoke a lot about himself without getting to know me much. I was totally fine with not divulging much about myself, this is just to provide better context of the dynamic.

Anyway, I started to dread going to my park because he’d often be there at the same time I’d go. So I’d go earlier to avoid him and even started going to another park in a town nearby. It felt unfair that I had to make such modifications just to get my me time. Near the end he asked for my email to send me a picture of something, and then I noticed he’d start emailing me every so often. I’d ignore them and not reply. This all occurred in the span of a few months and then I got an email that his contract was up and he’s left. I ignored that too and life at the park went back to normal.

A few weeks ago I’m returning to my car from a walk with my dog and I hear a man yell from the car parked next to mine, “hey how are ya!”. It’s him. He’s back in a different car and here on a new work contract, “could last up to 2 years”. He said he recognized my car and waited by it to see if I’d come by. I was on a nearly 30 minute walk which means he very well could have spent that whole time waiting for me!

I wish I had been assertive initially because the same thing is starting to unravel again: lengthy one-sided conversations about things I have no interest in or that he’s repeated ad nauseam, coupled with joining me on walks. I hate that I feel pressured to acknowledge his emails now as he asks if I get them. Just the other day I was on the phone catching up with a friend for 2 hours in my car at the park and halfway through he came and parked nearby and waited for me until I was done. Who does that?! I don’t find him a threat to my safety at all (I know, this doesn’t mean something can’t happen), I’m more concerned he has no boundaries and doesn’t take the hint, or rather, that he’s ignoring the hints and continues to get his way.

I blame myself for having weaker boundaries 3 years back. He mentions how serendipitous it feels that we’ve crossed paths again. Clearly this feeling isn’t mutual. I hate the hold he has over my time and mind at the park. I have no problem saying hi here and there as I’m actually quite extroverted, but I don’t want him offloading his issues onto me when I’m there for myself. I also don’t like that he’s not standing back a full 6 feet from me with no mask, so I walk at this weird angle where I try to get behind him and let my dog walk ahead of me.

I feel like I would be handling this a lot differently if it started today, so I’m clueless as to how I can undo this mess I enabled when I was younger and not FDS-informed. What should I say? How can I put him on the spot so he backs off and stops doing this? Do I bring up how it’s weird that he waits for me? Start ignoring him? I want to strike a balance between being civil and asserting that I don’t want him joining me on walks/incessantly chatting all without this putting my safety at risk. Even writing about this annoys me as it’s more time wasted, but I need to find a way to reclaim my me time at the park. I find it so weird that he has this hold over how we interact, as apart from this scenario I’ve become more assertive the last few years. I hate that I feel like I need to be nice about it too, even though he’s actually the one that’s rude for latching onto a lone woman in the wild for some free therapy. Help!