One morning, TikToker Rachel (@rachelmariewalker) was on a walk with her dog when she was approached by a man. She lives in Arlington, Virginia. The man complimented her dog, and she thanked him without breaking her stride.
About an hour later, she sat down at a patio for breakfast. Five to 10 minutes after sitting down at the restaurant, the man who complimented her dog appeared out of nowhere, greeted her, and sat diagonally across from her.
She recognized him right away, and her instincts told her that she was in danger. The man also began to take photos and videos of her, at least that’s what she thought he was doing. When her breakfast was being delivered, she overheard the man tell his server that he did not want to order any food.
“I get more freaked out the longer I wait there because he is sitting there with sunglasses and a hat on, staring at me, not doing anything other than taking photos and videos of me,” said Rachel. “It was so menacing, and I think his whole thing was to scare me.”
This man had definitely followed her to the restaurant, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. She decided to quickly scribble a note on a napkin and handed it to her waitress, pretending that she wanted a perfume recommendation because they had been talking about perfumes earlier. She didn’t want to alert the man to the fact that she was planning to leave.
The waitress read the note with a smile on her face and her back facing the man. She left to discreetly tell her manager about the situation.
When she returned, she mentioned to Rachel that the man had been taking photos and videos of her, confirming what Rachel had been thinking.
“Good to know that I wasn’t just being crazy,” said Rachel. “Trust your gut every time because for a second, I was second-guessing myself.”
“I was like, you’re being dramatic; you’re full of yourself; he’s not taking photos and videos of you. He absolutely was and was absolutely trying to scare me.”
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
So, Rachel paid her tab. The waitress stood there as they waited for the manager to come out. Rachel acted like she was interviewing for a job. The manager took her through the kitchen with her dog so she could leave safely out the back door.
Rachel is still shaken up because she had been tailed by a strange man, without her knowledge, for 45 minutes to an hour. Luckily, she hadn’t returned to her apartment after the walk because she would have led him right to her front door.
She is also super grateful to the waitress for helping her escape. She believes that the man may have been involved in human trafficking.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
