So here's the story. I received a Facebook message request from a guy I did not recognize. You can read the message without them knowing, so I opened it and was extremely alarmed. Basically he told me that he saw me on Bumble and noticed that we lived fairly close to each other. He supposedly recognized me from walking around my city, and decided to search my first name on Facebook and found me. He said that he has seen me "multiple times" when I have been on walks but never approached me. Told me that he would love to meet me and gave me his number. I was totally freaked out.

That same evening I went out for my normal walking route (I go about 5 miles total). As I turned a corner I saw a guy walking towards me but it was super sunny and there was a glare so it was hard to see them fully. As he approached he slowed down and started talking, and I had my headphones in and couldn't hear him. Took one headphone out, and looked to see who it was....and it was the guy who messaged me!!! 😳 He introduced himself and said that he was driving by and saw me and finally got the courage to come up to me. Told me he sent me a message and has seen me around "a lot" and that I was very beautiful. Gave me his card and told me that we should grab coffee. I was polite, but got out of there SO fast.

If you are contemplating doing this, please don't. It freaked me out and makes me wonder if this dude has been following me or even straight up stalking me. As a woman it makes me extremely uncomfortable that I cannot go out on a nice walk in my neighborhood without getting leered at. This is NOT the way to meet someone, and obviously I did not match with you on Bumble or send you a message back on Facebook so I'm not interested. I just couldn't believe this happened to me.

ETA: I'm getting a lot of messages saying that I shouldn't be concerned, it's normal, etc. I don't know how any woman would find this "normal". I am tempted to post the Facebook message (with all names edited out of course) so people can understand that this was NOT OKAY.