Thirteen

When I was thirteen, I met a guy. He was the son of the pastor of my best friend's church. My friend was ecstatic, and encourage a relationship between us. That doesn't seem so bad. Pastor's son, best friend's approval, everything should be peachy. There was just one pretty major issue with this situation: The pastor's son was twenty one. I'll remind you here that I was only thirteen. A twenty one year old man was trying to have a relationship with a thirteen year old kid, and he was pulling out all the grooming tricks that you hear about in these situations.

My entire life people have been telling me that they don't believe my age when I tell them. I had to grow up pretty quickly being the oldest child of a single mother, so when I was younger I was used to hearing "you seem so much older than you are, you're so mature for your age!" I had grown accustomed to being told I seemed so much older than my actual age, so when this guy told me this same thing, I didn't think anything of it. He was just another in a long line of disbelief about my age. I do clearly remember the night he said it to me though. I had gone to the fair with my friend, and he amazingly just happened to be there at the same time, and was able to find us with no problem. I have my sneaking suspicion that my friend had told him to meet us there at a specific time and place. As I previously stated, she was "encouraging" a relationship between us. Even if that's not what happened, and he really did just manage to find us by coincidence, he was with us now, and we were all walking around the fair together. It was a hot summer day when we first showed up at the fair, so I was in shorts and a tank top, and hadn't brought a jacket with me. When the sun went down, I started to get cold.

"Man, I should have brought a jacket with me, I'm getting really cold now." I said, with a little bit of a shiver.

"Oh, I can help you with that." He said as he wrapped and arm around me.

We walked along that way, chatting for a few minutes. I don't remember our exact conversation, but I do remember joking and laughing, and my friend pushing me closer into this guy "to have more warmth."

"Are you sure you're really only thirteen?" he asks me with a slight chuckle.

"Yep. I'm really just thirteen."

"You seem so much older than that! I'd have guessed you were at least sixteen." As he pulls me closer and starts rubbing my arms with the pretense of warming me up more.

It was at this point that I began to become very uncomfortable with the situation, and said something like "I'm warm enough now" and pulled away from him, and told my friend it was about time for me to head home, so we made our way to a pay phone and I called my mom to come pick me up.

I know now that this guy telling me I was so mature wasn't the same as when others would tell me that, but that it is actually a pretty common thing for a predator to tell an individual they are grooming. Of course I didn't realize that's what it was back then, I just knew that something didn't feel right about how he was touching me.

I no longer remember how long I had known this guy before the fair incident, but I do remember that after I met him for the first time, he started showing up at the youth events for the church, and would always find me if I stepped away from the group for whatever reason, either by myself or with my friend. No one really thought anything of it. The pastor's son showing up to help with youth events was almost something expected. But he wasn't there to help with the event. He was there for me. Every youth event I went to at my friend's church, he was there. Trying to spend time with me. Trying to make it seem like he was the only one that really understood me. Trying to make me feel safe with him. Trying to make me feel important. Trying to get me alone with him.

When my mom found out about this guy, she, rightly, threw a fit and didn't want me having any contact with him. This guy decided that the next move was to try to rally people at my church around him. After all, if they didn't see a problem with him, they'd try to change my mom's mind about him and let me spend time with him. So, this guy showed up at my church one Sunday. He introduced himself to my church friends, and we were all chatting with him when my mom told me it was time to go. She didn't know what this guy looked like, so she didn't realize who I was talking to at first. I asked her if I could stay and hang out with my friends for a bit and walk home when I was done. She asked me who it was that we were talking to, and I admitted it was this guy. She got pissed and made me go home with her. After that I didn't go to any events at my friends church anymore.

School started back up, and after not seeing this guy for a while, I began to realize how messed up the situation with him was, and started remembering all the times I'd been around him with disgust. It really didn't take that much time away from him to start feeling this way. Perhaps a month. Possibly two. Then one day he showed up at my school. We had open campus at lunch, so we didn't have to stay in the cafeteria. My friend suggested that we go outside to eat our lunch. I agreed because we were still having nice weather and eating out in the sunshine sounded really nice. Lo and behold, he was waiting. My friend had invited him to spend lunch with us. When I saw him my stomach dropped. I was fully sleazed out by him at this point, and when I saw him it hit me how much better I felt not being around him. He asked if he could have a couple bites of my lunch. I gave him the whole thing, told him I wasn't hungry anymore, and just walked off. To say I was pissed at my friend would be quite the understatement.

After the lunch incident, I was on the phone with my friend and she told me that I had really hurt this guys feelings, and he thought I didn't like him anymore. I told her that he was very perceptive because I never wanted to be around this guy again because it was creeping me out that he was so intent on having a relationship with me. I was 14 at this point, and had just started high school. I never saw this guy again after the conversation with my friend. I found out later from my friend that this guy's parents had found a bunch of women's clothing in his closet, and that he had racked up a huge phone bill calling 900 numbers.

When I was young, a guy who liked to dress up in women's clothing was a huge, home shattering occurrence. You need to remember that I was raised in the church. There were very specific rules. Men acted a certain way. Women acted a certain way. If you acted in anyway other than the way you were expected to, you were bad. You were shunned. You were going to rot in hell for all eternity unless you confessed your sins, repented, and started acting the way you were expected to. I have absolutely no issue with this now. You do you. Wear that skirt dude and make women weep about how their legs don't look nearly as good as yours do. But, back in the day, the fact that a man that liked to dress in women's clothing had tried really hard to have a romantic relationship with me made me sick to my stomach. I'm ashamed of myself for that reaction now, but indoctrination is a difficult thing to shake free of.

I also found out that this guys older brother was serving time in prison because he'd knocked up a middle schooler. Apparently pedophilia ran in the family. I was fortunate enough to have not gotten completely sucked in by the grooming behavior I experienced every time I was around this guy. I never heard anything else about this guy after that phone call, but find myself wondering if he ever successfully manipulated a young girl into a relationship with him over all these years. I sincerely hope not.