A self defense story

When I was in college I had a girlfriend who studied Chemistry.

One night she was at the lab late. I had agreed to meet her there as she finished up her lab work.

It was about a 10 minute walk from the lab building to the parking lot where her car was.

As we left the lab building around maybe 9pm, there was no one else around.
But as we turned onto the path towards the parking lot, a guy started following us.

At first I didn't think anything of it, but he was acting oddly:
- Kept staying behind things so it was hard to see him. E.g., stayed behind a bush/wall until we turned a corner, then would follow some more, staying behind a row of bushes or whatnot.
- Kept altering his pace so he didn't come into full view of us.
- Not really sure, I just really felt like something was wrong.

There was no one else around, and we were heading into an even more secluded area on the way to the parking lot.

So I pulled out my new 4" buck knife I had gotten the other day, and very loudly started telling my girlfriend about how much I liked my new big knife while making sure to make the knife very visible.

I opened it for her, loudly discussed how big the blade was, etc.

The guy stopped following us about 10 seconds after I started talking about my knife.


Perhaps not the story you were expecting. I'm not even positive he had ill intentions (I certainly thought so, but I could have been wrong).
But if he did, I think the knife talk discouraged him.

Potential violent situation averted.