If you know me at all then you know I often have odd encounters with people. I usually laugh it off. I’m not sure why people feel as if they can approach me and say weird things, or talk to me about random stuff. Do I look friendly?

So anyway, I was in Target looking through the chocolate in the candy aisle and I noticed this man standing to the left of me. He was staring at my feet. I was wearing flip flops that were beaded and sparkly, so I thought maybe he was looking at my my shoes. All of a sudden the man says, “ I really love your feet. And I love your toe ring. It’s really sexy.” I laughed and told him that I honestly didn’t know what to say because it is such a random comment. I was thinking to myself that maybe this guy has a foot fetish, which ok dude, but don’t perve on my feet because they belong to someone else. I wandered away.

But…..my foot admirer sidled down the aisle at me and asked me where I got my toe ring. I dunno, somewhere on Venice Beach quite awhile ago. I kept looking at the chocolate. Then my admirer sidles right up to me and bends over to look at my feet and tells me that my nail polish makes my feet look amazing. I just looked at him and moved away. Then my admirer asks me what other kinds of shoes I wear. I was about to just walk away when my husband walks up. My husband had been looking at things in electronics. He rescued me just in time. I’m kind of obnoxious at times, but I think this guy deserved it when I turned and told the guy, “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name. This is my husband.” Then I turned to my husband and told him how this guy had been admiring my feet and asking me questions about them. My husband raised an eyebrow, and before he could make a witty comment, the foot admirer slunk off pretty quickly. I think he started sprinting when he got to the end of the aisle. My husband and I had a pretty good laugh. He told me, “I can’t leave you alone for a minute. Now guys are interested in your feet!” And we both laughed again and commented on how this guy couldn’t get away from my husband fast enough.

So yeah, I have weird encounters pretty regularly. Some of these encounters are downright creepy. Most of the time it’s just people telling me odd thing or sharing things about themselves. But sometimes……Ew.

One day about a year ago after I rode my horse Travis in the riding ring, I decided to cool him off by walking him down the little rode that leads to the riding trail near the stable. I had gotten about half way to the trail when this guy suddenly steps out from behind and tree and asks me if he can take my picture. He had a professional looking camera, but he seemed odd, and I have had my fair share of weirdo encounters while riding my horses on the trail. I think this guy must have noticed the expression of my face because he told me that he didn’t mean to freak me out, but that he is taking a photography class at the local college and one of the assignments is to build a professional portfolio. Ok, you’re still weird though.

So the guy pulls out a school I.D., and shows me a credential for photography class that he said he is supposed to show people when he asks to take their picture. Well, ok, but probably you should start with that…. And I did let him know that he probably should show the I.D. FIRST. So I told him can take a picture of me on my horse, but it better not be for some weird crap. Photography dude assured me he is legit. And then photography guy admitted that he probably shouldn’t be stepping out from behind trees and asking women if he can take their photo. Yep, not a good idea.

So, photography dude takes several photos, and he shows me what they look like, and they look pretty good. He bids me goodbye and heads on down the rode with his camera. I noticed that he stopped to ask several other people to take their pictures, so that made me feel a little bit better, but in the back of my mind I still wondered if it was weird.

Fast forward about a month later I am walking down the road after riding Travis with one of the teenage girls from the stable. All of a sudden a red car pulls over, and a guy jumps out and exclaims, “I found you!” I realized it was photography dude. The girl who was with me had this odd expression on her face and she whispered to me that maybe we should run. But I told her what has happened previously. So photography dude whips out the picture he had taken of me on Travis, and hands it to me and says that he got an A+ for the photo, and that it won a prize in the photography show they had at school. Ok, that’s sort of cool. The girl who was with me agreed that it’s a cool photo. I did ask photography guy if he has quit popping out at people, and he laughed and said that he did stop doing that because people were getting pissed. Ok good. Perhaps some day he will actually be a great photographer…..well, as long as he is not popping out from behind trees on a road somewhere.

Here and there I have run across some interesting people who when I first meet them, I think, “Oh, I am totally going to piss them off at some point.” And I have this thought because I realize that they need a lot of attention, more than most of us can give someone…… Probably a personality disorder…… Or whatever. They feel misunderstood by everyone around them…… So of course I can manage that, but I wait for the other shoe to drop at all times.

This one person who lost their shit on me managed to be OK with me for about 10 years, but not with others. I would listen to all of their complaints about so-and-so said this, or they did that, blah, blah, blah. I talked them off the ledge. I think the reason things were OK for so long was because I only saw them at certain events about every other month or so…… And that help them not get too crazy, less contact. And I just agreed with everything they said because it just wasn’t worth the trouble to not agree.

Well, this person finally lost their shit on me big time. I mean it was not just the other shoe dropping, it was the entire shoe store. OMG. The text messages…..the Facebook messages and posts……over something that honestly was not that big a deal. AND, they created the problem! They had control over the entire situation, but chose to be the victim. They told me I was killing people, ruining lives, that I should be ashamed of myself, so I asked them why did they offer what they offered if they didn’t actually want anyone to take part? Why did you post what you posted on Facebook and asked people to help?

They told me that I was impossible and they just couldn’t deal with me. I went into therapist mode and kept pointing out things to resolve the situation, and they did not like that at all because they are so used to people just appeasing them. So they started bad mouthing me on Facebook to everyone who would listen. People didn’t know they were talking about me, so they were trying to tell them how sorry they were that this was happening, but then…..people figured out what they were talking about, and they walked away from the situation. I blocked this person everywhere because they would not leave me alone, and kept harassing me and threatening me. They clearly did not want to resolve anything.

I noticed that I am slightly traumatized by this situation……or rather I was, because it was almost two years ago, but it still affects me on some level. I am definitely cured from trying to be friends with people who are “eccentric” or “misunderstood”. No thanks.

I have a horse who I board at a stable. The current stable is a nice stable that is on the owner’s property, so all the looky-loos and people wanting to pet and feed our horses random things are not allowed in the stable. However, I did used to be at a stable where anybody and everybody came wandering into the stable to see the horsies.

I have so many stories about people doing interesting things around the stable that I could write a fairly sizable book. Several of the stories that come to mind is the story of the groups of looks-loos I encountered all in one day. I was mentally exhausted by the time I left the stable. It all started with a man who wandered into the stable with his 2 year old son while I was riding my horse. The little boy climbed through the railings of the riding ring and started running around the ring. I rode over to the father of the boy and I asked him to please come and get his son out of the ring. The guy just looked at me like I was being rude and told me that his son needed to burn off some steam, and he wants to see the horses, so why can’t run around in the ring. I asked him if he was serious, and then he accused me of being rude. I explained to him why this is dangerous, and how the stable is not a playground. So the guy tells his son that they are leaving because the lady is being rude and won’t allow him to play with the horsies. Apparently I’m a meanie. A few minutes later a woman wanders into the stable and sits down at the table that is near the ring. She whips out her phone and starts filming me, so I stopped and I politely asked her to please not film me. The woman got pretty upset and started yelling at me (she was filming the entire time) and told me that this is a public place so she can do whatever she wants to do. I left the ring and decided to go on the trail because clearly I wasn’t going to get any peace working my horse in the riding ring.

I was wandering down the trail when I encountered a group of people who stopped me and asked me where I rented the horse. I explained that this is my horse. They wanted to take pictures of my horse and I said no, so then they asked if they could take pictures standing next to the horse and I refused. I was walking away, and one of them called me a bitch. I just kept on riding and ignored them.

When I returned to the stable, there was a group of women with strollers and little kids sitting in the grass area of the stable. I muttered “What the fuck” to myself. My horse was not thrilled about all the strollers in a large circle. I wandered over to the group and I SUPER nicely asked why they were there, and one of them told me that they are a mom’s group and they thought it would be neat to eat lunch at the stable and let their kids see the horsies…..there is that silly word again. So anyway, I explained to them that this is a private facility and we need to be able to get the horses out without having to worry about people who are not used to being around horses getting hurt. The woman got really pissy, put her sandwich angrily back into the paper bag she had and said to the group really loudly, “Ok everyone! Pack up because this woman is kicking us out! Apparently we are getting on her nerves!” I snorted and told her, “Way to be nasty. I was nice to you. But ok, if you would prefer that one of your kids gets injured by a horse, then please stay.” I admit I was close to tears, and I am not a crier. I just put my horse away and went home.

Later on I came back to put my horse’s blanket back on him for the night, and there was this couple standing in front of my horse’s stall, and there was a dog in my horse’s stall. I wandered over and asked if I could help them, and the lady told me that she is training her dog to be around horses. She kept trying to feed my horse hay under the stall door so he would come over and get close to her dog. I watched for a couple of seconds and when the dog growled at my horse, I got angry and said, “Ok look, this is my horse, and I definitely did not give you permission to do this. It is not ok for you to possibly injure my horse, and what if your dog gets injured?” The husband tried to pull his wife away, and told her that he knew this was not a good idea. The woman starts going off on me and telling me that I am a nasty person because I am not allowing her to train her dog, so I asked for her address and told her that I would be by her house later on to feed her dog through the fence because that’s what I wanted to do. The woman became really angry and started yelling at me. About that time one of the owners of the stable wandered down the barn aisle and asked what the problem was, and the woman told her that she was just enquiring about riding lessons, and that I had gone off on her for no reason. I felt like I was being punked. Fortunately, the owner had been on the other side of the aisle and had heard the entire thing. She threw the woman out and told her to not come back. Ever. The woman was leaving but as she was leaving, she yelled threats at me and said that she would get me and my horse somehow. I moved my horse to a different part of the stable just to be safe. All of this happened in just one day…….It’s so interesting when people don’t consider the circumstances or consequences.

Happily at the stable where I currently keep my horse, nothing weird happens. If anyone should wander onto the property, they are immediately escorted off the property, and told that this is private property, so please do not come into the stable. The thing that blows my mind is that there are private property signs everywhere, and it is clearly someone’s house…..but people want to do what they want to do no matter what.