My (20f) Roommate (20f) Is Stalking My Friend (23f)

Okay, so to start with some background, I know my roommate from high school and we have been friends for years now. I introduced her to my third friend after she moved back home and they started dating almost right away, even though I, and my other friends, warned them to be careful about dating within friend groups.

They dated for about two months and made themselves and everyone around them miserable. They took a short break after that and we were all relieved, hoping that everything could just go back to normal since they hadn't been together all that long, but after only a week apart they got back together and immediately started repeating the same cycle. They fought constantly, dragged me into all their arguments and put me in the middle of things no matter how many times I insisted I didn't want to be involved.

They dated for another three/four months and finally seemed to split permanently about two months ago. Again, we were all relieved to hear that they were done, and that it seemed to be sticking this time.

That's when shit hit the fan.

It has recently come to light that my roommate had not truly moved on from the relationship. We all noticed some odd behaviors on her part - being very distant, drinking/smoking a lot, leaving for hours at a time and lying about where she was (even though we had her location on). We were worried about her, naturally, but figured that most of it stemmed from stress and depression around Corona, which we were all struggling to get through. This led to some small problems around the house with her barging in on personal space, eating our food, and even breaking a few things in anger and my other friends and I were trying to figure out a way to confront her about this when we learned about the stalking.

My friend reached out to me and said that she had been receiving e-mails from a random account with long poems with some vague threats about the sender coming to her house. They were generally about the sender's feelings regarding her, and though they were often complimentary toward her, they were also very pointed. She sent me screenshots of the poems and... They're incredibly creepy. Statements about how the sender was going to harm themselves and were so depressed since they lost my friend. I helped my friend track the IP address of where the e-mails had come from, as they were a bit too pointed, and we were both very sure that it was my roommate. The IP address confirmed it.

If that wasn't enough, we started to notice that my roommate really WAS sitting outside my friend's house and her place of work for hours at a time. We'd started to track her location when she disappeared, since we were worried about her taking off for long stretches and not talking to anyone while she's in this weird headspace, but seeing her clearly just sitting across the street from my friend's house, or just driving around the neighborhood, was a whole new level of creepy.

Finally, a few days ago, after saying she was going to her mom's house, we once again saw that she was in my friend's neighborhood. I was with my friend at the time and she received a call from her mom saying that she had seen my roommate dropping off "gifts" on the porch. Apparently, she had left flowers, some crushed up cans, and a wallet chain and had written my friend's name in rocks on the doorstep.

At this point, seeing as how things were clearly escalating, and quickly devolving, I decided to confront my roommate, as my friend seemed too scared to do it herself. I texted her that night and asked her, point blank, if she was the one doing these things - that I just had to know what was going on in order to understand the situation from her point of view. She denied everything adamantly, in spite of being presented with the evidence that we had. She insisted that she had nothing to do with it, had not been in contact with my friend since the breakup, and was actually receiving dropped calls herself that she thought were coming from my friend. When I told her I didn't believe her, she accused me of being a bad friend and insisted that any weird behavior was just because she was "having problems at home".

Frustrated, I gave her some space and didn't respond further. She didn't come back to the apartment, and stayed with her mom, but my other roommates and I were incredibly anxious all night that she might come back to confront us in person. We locked all our doors just in case, as she'd proven to be violent in the past (punched a hole in the wall after a fight with her gf, my friend).

I waited a day to text her again, hoping that if I approached her more calmly and she'd had some time to reflect then she wouldn't be so defensive. I tried again, assured her that I only wanted to help, and that I wasn't picking sides or trying to attack her. I only wanted the truth and to make sure that she was okay so we could all move forward in the best way possible. She denied it again.

Last night, I finally told her, point blank, that I did not believe her, and the more she lied the less I trusted her. I told her that if she wanted to pretend like nothing had ever happened and move on without figuring this out I'd go along with it, but our relationship wouldn't be the same if I knew I couldn't trust anything she said to me. This actually worked, and this morning she confessed to leaving the "present" a couple of days ago and to lying to me. She didn't acknowledge the e-mails or offer any kind of apology for anything she'd done. Instead, she insisted again that things were hard at home and she was going through a rough time and had been trying "not to put me in the middle of things" (yeah, right). Essentially, she said that she hadn't been herself recently, claimed that she was getting help (though none of us are sure if that's true), and cited our long friendship as reason to basically forget the whole thing and move on.

At this point, I still don't really trust her. I don't think she's getting better, but I also can't force her to get help. She's been acting so irrationally and having such violent mood swings that I'm genuinely scared about what her reaction will be each time I reach out to her or try to help. It would appear that she doesn't seem to know exactly what she's done wrong, or that she's done anything wrong, as she hasn't offered any apology to me, any of my friends that have been dragged into this mess, or my friend who she was stalking.

I'm just looking for ANY advice on this. I don't know what to do but I'm tired of being uncomfortable and unsafe in my own apartment and am concerned for both my friends.

tl;dr: My longtime friend and roommate dated another one of my friends, it went poorly, and then she started to stalk her. I'm caught in the middle and don't know what to do.

Submitted May 22, 2020 at 12:05AM

Okay, so to start with some background, I know my roommate from high school and we have been friends for years now. I introduced her to my third friend after she moved back home and they started dating almost right away, even though I, and my other friends, warned them to be careful about dating within friend groups.They dated for about two months and made themselves and everyone around them miserable. They took a short break after that and we were all relieved, hoping that everything could just go back to normal since they hadn't been together all that long, but after only a week apart they got back together and immediately started repeating the same cycle. They fought constantly, dragged me into all their arguments and put me in the middle of things no matter how many times I insisted I didn't want to be involved.They dated for another three/four months and finally seemed to split permanently about two months ago. Again, we were all relieved to hear that they were done, and that it seemed to be sticking this time.That's when shit hit the fan.It has recently come to light that my roommate had not truly moved on from the relationship. We all noticed some odd behaviors on her part - being very distant, drinking/smoking a lot, leaving for hours at a time and lying about where she was (even though we had her location on). We were worried about her, naturally, but figured that most of it stemmed from stress and depression around Corona, which we were all struggling to get through. This led to some small problems around the house with her barging in on personal space, eating our food, and even breaking a few things in anger and my other friends and I were trying to figure out a way to confront her about this when we learned about the stalking.My friend reached out to me and said that she had been receiving e-mails from a random account with long poems with some vague threats about the sender coming to her house. They were generally about the sender's feelings regarding her, and though they were often complimentary toward her, they were also very pointed. She sent me screenshots of the poems and... They're incredibly creepy. Statements about how the sender was going to harm themselves and were so depressed since they lost my friend. I helped my friend track the IP address of where the e-mails had come from, as they were a bit too pointed, and we were both very sure that it was my roommate. The IP address confirmed it.If that wasn't enough, we started to notice that my roommate really WAS sitting outside my friend's house and her place of work for hours at a time. We'd started to track her location when she disappeared, since we were worried about her taking off for long stretches and not talking to anyone while she's in this weird headspace, but seeing her clearly just sitting across the street from my friend's house, or just driving around the neighborhood, was a whole new level of creepy.Finally, a few days ago, after saying she was going to her mom's house, we once again saw that she was in my friend's neighborhood. I was with my friend at the time and she received a call from her mom saying that she had seen my roommate dropping off "gifts" on the porch. Apparently, she had left flowers, some crushed up cans, and a wallet chain and had written my friend's name in rocks on the doorstep.At this point, seeing as how things were clearly escalating, and quickly devolving, I decided to confront my roommate, as my friend seemed too scared to do it herself. I texted her that night and asked her, point blank, if she was the one doing these things - that I just had to know what was going on in order to understand the situation from her point of view. She denied everything adamantly, in spite of being presented with the evidence that we had. She insisted that she had nothing to do with it, had not been in contact with my friend since the breakup, and was actually receiving dropped calls herself that she thought were coming from my friend. When I told her I didn't believe her, she accused me of being a bad friend and insisted that any weird behavior was just because she was "having problems at home".Frustrated, I gave her some space and didn't respond further. She didn't come back to the apartment, and stayed with her mom, but my other roommates and I were incredibly anxious all night that she might come back to confront us in person. We locked all our doors just in case, as she'd proven to be violent in the past (punched a hole in the wall after a fight with her gf, my friend).I waited a day to text her again, hoping that if I approached her more calmly and she'd had some time to reflect then she wouldn't be so defensive. I tried again, assured her that I only wanted to help, and that I wasn't picking sides or trying to attack her. I only wanted the truth and to make sure that she was okay so we could all move forward in the best way possible. She denied it again.Last night, I finally told her, point blank, that I did not believe her, and the more she lied the less I trusted her. I told her that if she wanted to pretend like nothing had ever happened and move on without figuring this out I'd go along with it, but our relationship wouldn't be the same if I knew I couldn't trust anything she said to me. This actually worked, and this morning she confessed to leaving the "present" a couple of days ago and to lying to me. She didn't acknowledge the e-mails or offer any kind of apology for anything she'd done. Instead, she insisted again that things were hard at home and she was going through a rough time and had been trying "not to put me in the middle of things" (yeah, right). Essentially, she said that she hadn't been herself recently, claimed that she was getting help (though none of us are sure if that's true), and cited our long friendship as reason to basically forget the whole thing and move on.At this point, I still don't really trust her. I don't think she's getting better, but I also can't force her to get help. She's been acting so irrationally and having such violent mood swings that I'm genuinely scared about what her reaction will be each time I reach out to her or try to help. It would appear that she doesn't seem to know exactly what she's done wrong, or that she's done anything wrong, as she hasn't offered any apology to me, any of my friends that have been dragged into this mess, or my friend who she was stalking.I'm just looking for ANY advice on this. I don't know what to do but I'm tired of being uncomfortable and unsafe in my own apartment and am concerned for both my friends.tl;dr: My longtime friend and roommate dated another one of my friends, it went poorly, and then she started to stalk her. I'm caught in the middle and don't know what to do.