Paranoid or cautious?

      In the past, I've had my fair share of catcalls, harassment, and being followed while out in public. I've learned to deal with it and present myself as not-a-target, to the point where I feel fairly confident walking around on my own, even after dark. The neighborhood we're in now has always felt safe, so as the days grow shorter, I've just kept walking at my usual time, despite it being definitely nighttime. Three events have happened in the last couple months that make me wonder if I'm being paranoid, or justifiable cautious, and if I need to do research on what sort of personal protection items are legal in this area. 

     The first event seems fairly innocuous, and I didn't really pay it much mind at first. I saw another person walking along the sidewalk I'd turned onto, so I popped out into the street to pass them; they were in regular clothes and clearly having a nice stroll and I was in workout gear clearly getting my cardio in. Parking along the curb is very common here, so I didn't really keep an eye on the person as I passed. For safety reasons, I don't have headphones or music playing while I walk, so I clearly heard the "hey, excuse me, are you working out?" when I'd gotten about 6 feet past them. I turned my head and politely answered in the affirmative, and the guy replied something along the lines of, "I thought so, 'cause of your outfit. It's clearly doing your body well, keep it up!" 

    Ok, weird, but he was polite and didn't make any moves other than to keep walking, so I said thank you and moved on. One of the nicer interactions I've had with strangers, so I pretty much forgot about it. A month or two later, I extended my walk out of my immediate neighborhood, and started taking a side loop around a building with a pretty decent hill and sporadic lighting. It seems to only operate during business hours, so I figured my late walk around it wouldn't trouble anyone. 

Usually, I'd come down the street from the center top of this picture (all residential homes) and turn right onto the smaller street down into the tech research center. The road does an odd thing there, in that the main road - from the right side of the top of the picture - does a little jog to the east. You can go straight and into the tech center, but it's pretty obvious it's not the main road, and there are signs there indicating such. Now and then people get confused, but usually turn around and get back on the main road before turning west onto a clearly not-main-road with a steep hill. 

     On this particular night, I'd made the two right turns and was about halfway down the large hill when I noticed a car creeping slowly long the straight section. I figured he was lost and would turn around, but then when I got to about where the black star is, I heard squealing. The car, an old, beat up junker, was creeping down the hill, riding its brakes to stay at roughly walking pace the whole way. Keeping in mind there is NOTHING down here but the tech center, and it's well past business hours at this point, and I got a little creeped out. I kept walking normally, looking around to keep an eye on the car, and it kept creeping slowly down the hill, ignoring both turnoffs available to turn around and get back on the main road. 

     I knew from experience that once I turned the corner around the main building, there were very few lights until the south corner - just a big, open parking lot and flat grass up to a tree line. Not super comforting. So I kept going around the corner, listening to the squeal of brakes, until I passed out of line-of-sight of the car, then sprinted like my freaking life depended on it for the south corner. I was kind of focused, so I can't say exactly when I stopped hearing the brakes squeal, but I made it to the corner of the building and then hit the wooded area to the east before turning around to check the situation. I didn't see the car, but I turned away and worked my way through the woods, cutting back to the main road where there were lights and then heading back toward home. Paranoid? Maybe, but creepy car brake squeals pacing you into unlit areas aren't comforting. 

     I stayed away from that area for a bit, and found what felt like a better route, crossing the main road but still staying in reasonably well-lit residential areas. Kept on that for about a month and a half, and then had another weird occurrence. 

     The above map is the farthest point of my current walk (though that might change, now). I typically come out of the northern side road on the top of the map, head south down a two-lane but reasonably large main road, and turn west onto another residential road. The yellow line is an exit from a fairly major route, but as it dumps into residential areas, it's not heavily used. The purple line at the south end is a chest-high retaining wall right up against the sidewalk that's probably about 100 feet long, and there are usually a couple cars parked along that side of the road as well. 

     On this particular night, I came out of the northern side road as per usual and started down the main road. When I got to roughly the number 1, an SUV that had been going north slammed on its brakes (I heard this rather than saw it as it had just passed me), turned around in the side street, and came back south. It passed me when I was roughly at the number 2 and pulled over at the number 3, crowded right up against the curb but with no cars in front of it. What got my attention was that it had passed several other open spaces to pull over but instead chose to park in the one available area that was right up against the wall - basically, a choke point with nowhere to go. 

     I kept an eye on it, but there was no movement, no lights on inside, and no sound of it shifting into park. It just sat there, idling, hazard lights on, looking super suspicious. Paranoid? Maybe, but paranoia has stood me in good stead before. Right before I got to the retaining wall, I stepped in between two parked cars and crossed to the other side of the road - conveniently under a streetlight and with lots of level ground on that side of the road. As soon as I reached the other side of the intersection and it was clear that I was going to stay on the main road, the SUV gunned its engine, turned onto the side road, turned around again, and resumed going north.

     There's a saying I got out of a book, long, long ago: "once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy." I'm not saying there's a conspiracy, kidnapping ring, or anything heavily sinister that is specifically targeting me, but I am definitely getting leery after three incidents in a couple months. Might be time to change up my route again...