Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages PL
Well, it's a long story. He knew me but I didn't know him. He saw me in the library one day and waited for closing time. When I came out he started talking out loud as I passed him. I turned to see if he was talking to me and there was no one else around. So I figured he was talking to me. I went over to see what it was he was talking about and he was just commenting on an ad he saw in the paper. We talked for a while and eventually he said he knew my neighbor. The point of all of this is that he wanted a ride home.
So, you know, this being America's friendliest hometown, I gave him a ride. And that's how it all started. Then he kept showing up whenever he needed a ride. After the second time I told him I couldn't give him anymore rides. But that doesn't stop him from showing up. And he just starts talking as though I don't have anything better to do than listen to him.
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From your handle and this I assume you work at a library and have a lonely library user. I had a stalker Gail P. while I was on the reference desk at the University of Minnesota Law Library in 1989-1990. I helped her whenever she had questions but that's all. She would sit and stare at me for hours. There was nothing that the Library Administration could do even though she had previously to me chained herself to a U of Minnesota professor's desk because she was in love with him. Doubt if he even knew her all that well. She followed my girlfriend Jennifer V. home one night after I had returned to the SF Bay Area for the 1989 Christmas break leaving my live-in girlfriend to her work and other stuff. Still there was not much the University would or could do. Gail did not lose interest in me until Jennifer V. left for her clerking for an Iowa judge after graduating in 1990 from the U of Minnesota Law School. Then I assume Gail went to the next victim of her obsessions. She seemed to like the attention and the ability to cause a ruckus within the University of Minnesota. We, of course, and the Law Library staff documented everything as much as possible and my girlfriend even gave the Law Library Director at that time, M. Kathleen Price, quite a piece of her mind about Gail P. and her antics especially after Gail P. followed her home. That really scared my girlfriend Jenny quite a bit.
If this man is just a lonely library user it does not sound like there is much you can do. Maybe tell him you have to go somewhere else rather than home so you do not have to offer him a ride. To a boyfriend's house for instance. To a Red Hat meeting. If he is more of a stalker like Gail the law seems to offer quite a bit more in protection than when Jennifer and I went through in 1989-1990 in our ordeal with Gail P. Just tell him you have errands to run or whatever if he persists with unwanted attention then you probably could get a work place restraining order. Document everything with time date and what he did if he is a serious problem like Gail P.
I will bet that some of the Florida libraries have had problem patrons which the library staff have had to get work place restraining orders against for some reason or another. Not sure if talking too much would qualify though. He just sounds like a lonely man.
If you are just a library patron like this lonely man, then I would just alert the library staff about him if he is a real problem for you. He just sounds like a lonely man.
This might be of help--
http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ps/Circ/cir...ltpatrons.html