Never dated her, but she was bonkers.
I was fresh out of college, and excited to have my first Big Boy real job. As adjunct faculty, I'm not strictly a professor, but I can work with students, which I was looking forward to doing.

There was a grad student who worked down the hall from me. Because English was not her first language, I volunteered to help her with grammar, spelling, etc. on her dissertation.

Out of appreciation, she started leaving bowls of jelly beans, candy or other little gifts outside my office door. Okay, maybe that's just her culture. But soon she was coming to my office once every couple hours, and wanting to stay and talk; at first about her project, but then about whatever. I started telling her she shouldn't be coming down here so much, I didn't have the time to sit and talk all day. But she kept coming. As did the gifts. Soon, I was getting full plates of (wonderful) ethnic food on my desk. I finally had to tell her it wasn't appropriate to for a student to be giving a faculty member all these gifts.

So she started leaving them at my home. Garden gnomes would show up mysteriously in the night, Shel Silverstien's "The Giving Tree" was sitting on my doorstep one evening, and it got to where I dreaded the sound of footsteps in the hallway at work.

She started calling me two or three times in an evening, sometimes in tears wanting to know what I meant by something I said, and why I was toying with her feelings. I'd know it was her when I picked up the phone, there was a silence, and that accent calling my name made my heart sink. I finally told her never to call me at home anymore.

So the office visits increased. Being the nice guy, I told her I would still help her with her English, but NO GIFTS!

She came into my office one day, and we talked about her project. She finally asked: "Do you know what Friday is?"
"February 14th," I said, afraid of, but knowing, what she was getting at.
"And that is?" she asked, excitedly.
"Valentine's Day," I sighed deeply.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" she said and started making the shape of a box in her hands and nodding.
"NO GIFTS!" I snapped at her.
"Why are you being so mean to me?" she burst into tears and wailed.
"I'm not mean, I'm just being firm. You need to leave now." With that, I pushed her out of my office and locked the door. Which, brilliant me, meant that I was trapped. I spent the next 15 minutes barely breathing, listening for her to leave. I didn't hear her leave, but when I finally got the nerve to look out, fully ready to call the campus cops, she was gone.

I got home to about 5 phone messages, all of which were her in tears. I unplugged the phone and the next morning sent an email threatening harassment charges on her if she tried to contact me through any means for any reason. Surprisingly, she listened and that was the end of it.
( setimret likes his metaphors mixed, not stirred, Fri 17 Nov 2006, 18:17, Reply)