Weird (possibly from a cult) Guy at Grocery Store

This happened almost a year ago now, but its something I still think about whenever I go grocery shopping, especially when I'm alone.

One day my boyfriend (31M) and I (25f) had planned to make some dinner together while I spent the night at his place during our weekend (we work food service jobs so we have two weekdays off back to back together to spend time with each other). We just needed some veggies and a couple of odd ingredients like oil, so we just planned to go in and out for this trip. I'll be referring to him as David.

To give some context on why this situation was so strange I have to describe my boyfriend and myself.

We live in a pretty extroverted community where everybody talks to EVERYBODY. So, even though it's not technically a small town, the behavior is very similar. I am not a local but have lived here for about 7 years now, while David has lived here for almost his entire life. When he was younger, he made some shitty decisions for himself and ended up doing some jail time, a long probation, and is now a convicted felon (drug-related, for those curious). He hasn't reoffended however since his crime (it was about eleven years ago now I think) and when I met him while he was still on probation, I made it very clear that if he ever reoffended, I'd kick his ass and leave him.

Unfortunately, word got around of what happened and he and his family became more of a gossip topic within the community. People sneer at him if they recognize him and they always give me a look of pity or disgust because I "seem like such a sweet, honest girl". Whatever, I pay them no mind. We usually get a lot of stares while out in public, not only because of his background but because we're interracial, he's covered in tattoos (I've got a few myself), piercings, and we dress more in the alternative style. It's not super common in our area; to sum it all up people leave like bats out of hell when they see us together.

So imagine my surprise when I send off David to go grab some peppers (they were on the opposite side of the produce section where I was at) while I finished grabbing the avocados that I needed, and not even three seconds later a random man was on the otherside of the produce section I was standing in.

"Those avocados looking good?" I knew what he said, I'd heard it, but I didn't register it because I'm not used to people approaching me in public, let alone speaking to me. I also tend to have a pretty mean look on my face when I'm relaxed (rbf gang unite) so I was just stunned that he was actually speaking with me more than anything.

"Huh?" He pointed and looked down at the avocados while repeating himself.

"The avocados! Looking good?"

"Um, yeah? I guess?" I thought the conversation would end there and I stopped looking at him and went back to browsing the avocados. Bad move on my part.

Again, with almost an unnerving amount of excitement he had moved around the produce aisle (this is what was keeping us apart to give you an idea of how quickly he'd closed the space between us) and he was about a foot away from me now. I backed up out of habit, since I really don't like having people I don't know in my personal space, but he just moved forward to close the distance again.

"My name is John by the way, it's very nice to meet you!" Again, I was shocked that somebody was talking to me at all considering who I'm with, but his upbeat attitude and outgoing behavior didn't really surprise me since literally everybody is like that in this area. He had short brown hair, glasses, and he was dressed pretty smart, think a relaxed Urkel without the suspenders.

"Uh, hey John. I'm OP, nice to meet you." At this point I'm getting uncomfortable, because I'm already regretting giving this guy my name, and I'm wondering where the hell David is at. I'm also mildly irritated; I am in no way a friendly looking woman, I'm very tall (a little over 6ft) and I have a pretty "tanky" build as David puts it. Why did this guy think I was approachable, at all? And even though he was a a little shorter than me, and I initially didn't feel threatened, I just felt off.

He was way too happy to have met a random woman who was just shopping on her own, and he was really physically invasive as every time I moved away from him he would casually but also not-so-subtly close the distance again. At this point I was panicking and trying to mentally communicate to David because dude where the fuck are you as I'm just politely nodding and giving tight lipped awkward smiles to the guy as he keeps talking to me. He's telling me small talk things like where he's from, how long he's been in the area, how lovely it is, etc. But again it all just felt very disingenuine. Just wrong, I don't know how else to explain it.

The entire encounter (me just being alone with him) couldn't have lasted for more than two minutes, but it felt like an eternity while I kept scanning for David behind John.

I finally managed to glance over to the area where the peppers would've been and I see him, and when I tell you I've never seen David look so infuriated and territorial at the same time. We locked eyes, and I think he could just feel how uncomfortable I was, but as soon as I widened my eyes because oh my god help me what the fuck he moved so...fast. For any LOT fans think Gollum when he attacks Sam. The look in his eyes wasn't anything I'd ever seen before and he was zig zagging between produce stands (this will be important). I physically relaxed as I saw him approaching, and within seconds he was cutting off John and inserting himself between us.

"Hey! What's going on, man? Helping out my girlfriend?" At first glance, David isn't that intimidating. He honestly looks like an Urkel himself (he wears glasses lil cutie), just punked out with loads of tattoos and piercings. But he has a really, honestly overwhelming energy no matter how he's feeling; and he was pissed, it reeked off of him as John stuttered. I watched as his face dropped, just for a second and he looked beyond irritated that David had swooped in the way that he did. But he recovered fast and just reintroduced himself.

"Hi! Sorry, my name is John, I was just talking to OP here, she's so nice!"

"Yeah, she is." The tension was extremely thick and I was nervous; more so just watching David to make sure he didn't do anything that could get him in trouble. People here are already 911 happy over much more trivial things, I could already see them salivating at getting a known "criminal" in the area arrested again because "See I knew it, he's bad news".

He's doing the same thing he did to me with David, introducing where he's from, how long he's been in the area (not very long, honestly now that I remember) and he's just so nice that neither of us really felt comfortable completely cutting him off. But David and I shared a look and we both for sure had the same thought; why me? This guy looked like every other person in the area, and would most likely have a much better and easier time striking up a friendly conversation. What about me made it that he wanted to speak with me?

I'll admit I watch and listen to a lot of true crime shows/podcasts, so some of the things that John was saying made alarm bells ring in my head almost immediately. He mentioned that he had met some sort of "mentor" (that's the part that really had me furrowing my brows), how they had saved him (I don't know if he was being gender neutral or if there was more than one person), and that he really wanted to just live his life in the "purest" (mkay) way possible and how he was just looking for some friends.

David is a legend at being very nice but extremely firm, and he kept doing so with John but he just kept wiggling around and reintroducing how he just wanted to be friends with us. At this point, David was fed up and I was just wanting to finish our shopping so we could go home and make dinner. The whole thing was making me feel weird and I just wanted out.

"We don't have any friends." David told him flatly, but John just pushed around that and kept prodding.

"Oh, I can't imagine that's true with how friendly you both are! Do you have any social media? Like Instagram?"

"No. I don't really have socials considering I'm already well known at the [redacted] County Justice System." At this point I see David tensing up while John just kinda swallows in an uncomfortable manner, but he's still not backing down. I could tell that the two of them at this point were either gonna get unfriendly in a verbal manner, and the last thing I wanted was a physical fight; so I took over.

"I do though! Here, type in your handle and follow yourself so you can have my account." Before you all panic; I have a dud account that I use for creeps that won't leave me alone when I'm out alone with my girl friends or family. It just gets them off my back easier and they don't ever get to see my actual profile. The smile he gave was...not genuine. Kind of sinister actually, with the way he felt and looked relieved; he immediately reached for my phone. He pulled out his phone to verify that it worked and he then said goodbye and just...left us. Just like that. David watched him go while simultaneously wrapping his arm around me.

"That was weird, I wonder—"

"Wait until we check out; we have what we need I'll come get the rest later." David was scanning the area and at this point I went from weirded out to straight up concerned. David can be pretty paranoid due to his past and the way that people treat him, but this wasn't his usual paranoia. He was actively looking around, and he refused to leave me by myself again. His arm never left me even at self-check out, he once again kept kinda glaring around at everybody just to ensure we wouldn't get approached again, and he only relaxed once we were in his car and the doors were locked.

"What was that all about? You've never acted like that—"

"You were being flanked." I felt my blood run cold as soon as he said that, and I just kinda stuttered as I asked him to clarify what he meant. That crazed look in his eye? The one he had as he zig-zagged between stands to get to me? He told me it was because he was angry, he was confused, but more than anything he was scared. He was afraid he wouldn't get to me in time. Again, on the verge of freaking out I asked him what he was talking about.

David said that he already knew I was uncomfortable, and he was pissed off because John was way too close to me for his comfortability. But he only started moving the way he did because he noticed another man behind me, watching John and I's interaction. David, again, has lived here almost his entire life, and he said he'd never seen the guy before. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a black hoodie, and he was about as tall as I was, and he was just standing there, staring right at me. He was also moving closer to me while John was kinda talking my ear off, and his boiling point was when he noticed the other man was getting close enough to just grab on to my purse, or worse in his mind; me.

Once he got near enough to make eye-contact with the second man behind me, the guy bolted; straight towards another man that was watching from a distance. He said the two of them exchanged quick words and then they just disappeared around a different aisle deeper into the grocery store. That was why he didn't let go of me, and why he kept surveillancing the store; he wanted to ensure the same guys weren't following us around the store, including John.

Everything else made sense; except for the zig-zagging motion he was doing while essentially floating over from the peppers. When I asked him why he was zig-zagging like that to get to me, just because it looked odd and I couldn't figure out what the significance of it was, he got really quiet when he started up his car and starting pulling out of the lot before he answered me.

"I was going to pick up one of those produce scales, and use it if they got their hands on you." I didn't even want to think about that as I reassured him that I was safe, thanks to him no less, and that I was going to block the guy on Instagram. Before I did that, David suggested we snoop just to see if he had some weird stuff on his Instagram and it looked surprisingly normal at first glance. But a lot of the photos were taken in a headshot like style, with a very empty smile from John's face with random emojis as captions, or just straight up locations of random cities. Probably areas he was traveling around.

Any landscape photos he did happen to post were always somewhere in the desert. These photos he never tagged a location on. As we were snooping I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine as I remembered something. Instagram has a feature where you can tag your location in any photo that you post. Like I said, I watch/listen to a lot of true crime, so that's a feature that I disabled and actively avoided enabling whenever I made a post on my private Instagram. People are just crazy, and honestly, it just felt weird having a bunch of people I know and barely knew from high school just having my exact location whenever I posted it.

I didn't share it with David, just because he truly doesn't have any social media and I didn't want to freak him out more. But I'm pretty sure the guy was relieved to receive my Instagram because that meant he'd have a general location of where I live. He'd know where I was, or at leat what areas I frequented, and who knows what he would have done with information like that. I promptly blocked the account and shoved it deep down into my brain, wanting to forget about the whole thing.

We don't shop at that same grocery store anymore, and we haven't seen John anywhere else in town. But I still think about it sometimes when I need to make a quick trip to the grocery store.