My Boyfriend, my stalker

When you’ve finished reading this you’ll know why I didn’t report him. It was the wrong sort of rape and no one would have believed me. I didn’t ever tell anyone because I didn’t want to be a ‘victim’ or, even worse, a ‘survivor’. I hate that term, like half an hour of your life indelibly marks you forever.

My first warning should have been that I met M on a blind date, the blind date wasn’t with him, he was a stranger in the bar that came and sat with us and refused to leave until I handed over my number.

In hindsight, that was a clear signal that he wasn’t all there, but didn’t Ryan Gosling do something similar to Rachel McAdams in The Notebook? There’s a fine line between stalker and romantic. Think Milk Tray man vs. cat burglar.

I’d just come out of a five-year relationship and been forced to move out of our flat and hundreds of miles away back to my hometown to live with my parents. My ex was very cold, critical and undemonstrative. He’d cheated on me throughout our relationship and delighted in belittling and ‘knocking me down a peg or two’. Despite this, we’d parted amicably.