Paranoia Over Man In Striped Shirt

I keep forgetting to mention an incident that happened about a week ago…

I was out on my walk in the early afternoon, just relaxed and going about my normal thing, when I noticed a man ahead of me on the sidewalk. He was tall, on the slender side, wearing jeans and a green and white horizontal striped shirt. I didn’t even notice the odd shirt (which I’ll explain more in a minute) at first– I thought it was odd he was just standing there staring at me. Most people on the pedestrian path and sidewalks are, you know, moving.

I was walking up a slight hill and he was where the hill flattened out again, so I could see where he would have come from and he pretty much just seemed to appear suddenly. I could have missed him arriving upon the spot, but it was a little startling because I was staring straight ahead and only blinked and ta da! He was there. Then he didn’t move. He just stood there. It wasn’t a bus stop. He wasn’t smoking or listening to anything on ear buds. He was just standing there, facing me. The oddest part was that he was careful to hide his face in a little dip of foliage so I could see nothing of his face.

As a woman, I can relate that alarm bells go off whenever we spot a man acting strangely because sometimes that’s a precursor to some guy scaring the shit out of you by getting aggressive. So, I continued to walk towards him as we had some distance between us and just watched very carefully, keeping my stride brisk and assertive. That’s when I realized something about his shirt was freaking me out.

A little background on weird people in horizontal striped shirts… I don’t mean the cute 60s ones in thin alternating lines, I mean the thick alternating lines like the 70s. Think 2 to 3 inches wide. See, a lot of hybrids have been seen wearing such shirts– maybe to detract from their strange faces? Or to be slightly hypnotic? No one knows for sure. But they’re not in style (that I’ve noticed anyway) and it was a brand new shirt. Usually the shirts in such cases are black and white, but this was a muted apple green color– puce? I don’t know… Anyways, I recall seeing Christopher Robin in horizontal striped shirts before, especially as children. He used to wait for me by trees, silent, wearing that kind of shirt. The memory rose in the back of my mind and I started feeling more uncomfortable.

Like THIS– only green and white:

Then I realized that the normally busy street was completely quiet. No cars. No other walkers, joggers, or cyclists. No one in their yards or in the playground I was only a little over a block away from. I felt isolated and real nervousness rose steadily the closer I got to this odd man.

So I was getting closer and closer– 2 blocks and then 1 and then a half a block. This man continued to hide, motionless, staring into my direction, his head a mere shadow between leaves. I was battling in my mind. A part of me was dying of curiosity. Another part of me wanted to run. An ordinary man acting that way would be a reason to haul ass for sure — but what if it was… someone interesting!?

Just as I reached the point where I’d be crossing the street, a half a block away, I felt that little niggle in my head– of presence. Was it my imagination? Or was there seriously a hybrid type guy actually standing there waiting for me? I had to make a decision, and at the last second, I turned down the street to go around the block rather than confront the strange man face to face with no one else around. As I went down the side street, I kept glancing back to see if the man followed or even went down the way I came.

He did not.

So I walked around the block, crossing to the playground, now watching both ahead and behind me.

No one.

A car pulled in to the playground parking lot with 2 women and their kids and I breathed a sigh of relief and continued back around to see the spot where the man had been partially concealed by a low hanging leafy branch. Again, there was little time for anyone to take off in any direction at the T-junction where the man had been standing to get away without being seen on foot. Yet when I checked, no one was there!

Puzzled, but still intrigued. I went back a short ways to confirm the man wasn’t in any yards in the area.

Nope!

So I turned around and continued on my original path. Perhaps he went ahead and would surprise me in the woodsy area I would be walking through next? Lots of trees and shrubbery to hide behind there! So I was alert and looking side to side. Cars and a jogger went by and that element of eeriness abated. I saw no one at any point who looked like the man, nor did I get any odd feelings again.

I kept running it through my mind, did I really feel that subtle yet unmistakable mental touch? I could swear I did– but I was so unprepared to just walk right up to someone like that! If he’d just walked towards me like a normal person– or even showed his face!– I wouldn’t have been so put off and cautious. But I just couldn’t bring myself to pass close by a person hiding like that. It was too unnerving. If he’d even followed me, but let me see who he was, I would have talked to him — around people at the park that was right there for instance.

I keep asking them to come see me during the day out in public. I want encounters I remember and to interact in a more natural way. Then when things go screwy, I take off. That scenario was just too Creepy McRaperson for me and I couldn’t deal with it. Couldn’t they just not be so freaky?!?

The woman with the dark sunglasses was just a woman. Maybe an abused woman concealing a black eye. Nothing eerie there– just me being paranoid. This last one, though–? I can’t say for certain, but it felt like something more weird to me. The encounter has been bugging me ever since. I keep feeling foolish about it and not wanting to talk about it– but really, I need to. Even if it turns out I’m paranoid, I need to track THAT, because it is a part of understanding my mentality regarding all of this.

It has not stopped me from going for walks though. I am, however, more alert for off-kilter things to greet me along the way. I also need to bring my darned Ipod so I can take a pic next time that happens, dammit!! At Spiral’s End: What’s Left After the Paradigm Shatters is the personal paranormal blog of a woman that follows not only current odd events in her life, but recounts incidents from her past, including lifelong alien abductions, encounters with ghosts and other spiritual beings, and premonitions from either waking visions or dreams. She reacts and speculates about the deeper meaning behind these incidents and wonders– what is the ultimate reality or intelligence behind it all?