In a chilling personal account published on HuffPost and syndicated through Yahoo, a woman recounts her harrowing encounters with a neighborhood flasher who stalked her during early morning runs, only for the sense of security provided by her long-distance boyfriend to shatter upon discovering his hidden marriage. The essay, titled "I Was Targeted By A Neighborhood Flasher. My Boyfriend Helped Me Feel Safe — Until I Learned His Secret," details a series of unsettling incidents that began in the predawn hours and escalated over nearly two years, highlighting vulnerabilities in personal safety and trust in relationships.
The troubles started one dark morning when the woman, recently divorced after a 19-year marriage, was out for a run. A man on a bicycle approached her with his pants pulled down around his ankles, hissing, "You want some of this?" as he balanced precariously under the glow of a streetlight. She described the moment in her essay: "It was quite a feat of balance, I thought in the split second before I realized he was a threat, stalking me in the black morning when I was just trying to go for a run." Shaken but determined, she immediately called the police, who took down a report but offered no immediate resolution.
At the time, the woman was nearly a year into a relationship with her boyfriend, whom she met shortly after her divorce. Living 1,000 miles apart, their connection was mostly virtual, built on open conversations about her post-marriage emotions and desires for a new chapter. She shared the incident with him over the phone, and he responded supportively, saying he was sorry it had happened. They even laughed together about the flasher's "pale butt glowing under the streetlight," a brief moment of levity amid the fear.
Refusing to let the encounter derail her routine, the woman continued her runs in the dark, but the experience altered her vigilance. "Every time I shifted my gaze to avoid tripping, my headlamp cast a hard shadow that looked like the man, ready to pounce," she wrote. "He was everywhere." The fear intensified when her boyfriend visited the following weekend. Running together, she felt protected by his tall, fit presence, though she grappled with the irony: "I hated that I felt safer with him just because he was a man while the source of my fear was also a man, how men had on-off power over my sense of security."
After he returned home, the stalker reappeared in broad daylight, riding his bike past her house and executing a U-turn to peer directly into her kitchen window. She called the police again, prompting an officer to search the area. This time, she got a clear view of the man: "hooded eyes, black hair, skin drawn tight around his jaw." He appeared anxious, "like he wasn’t in control of his own actions," she observed. If viewed in a mug shot, she noted, "you might say he looked like a serial killer."
The assigned detective revealed the man's identity and background, according to the essay. He lived just a few blocks away on the same street and had a history of exposing himself to women, earning the nickname "penis pedaler" from a neighbor a few blocks over. Despite this, no arrests had been made because he hadn't been caught in the act. "That’s awful," her boyfriend said on the phone later. "I wish I could be there for you." She brushed it off, replying, "It’s fine. I’ll be fine," though internally she was far from reassured.
Nighttime routines became rituals of paranoia. As soon as the sun set, she double-checked locks, armed herself with pepper spray, and searched hiding spots like under beds and inside the bathtub for the man's "lanky, capable body." She even shoved a garbage can against the kitchen door for an audible alert if he broke in. The police number was on speed dial, but sleep evaded her amid fears of rape and murder.
Two days later, while walking with a friend, the flasher rolled up beside them, prompting another police contact. The detective installed a motion-triggered deer camera on her front porch column, noting that authorities believed the man had a "particular interest" in her—a statement she described as sounding like a "weird compliment." Friends offered varied advice: one suggested borrowing a dog for protection, which she declined; another asked about a restraining order, deeming it too extreme. Her boyfriend proposed getting a Peloton to exercise indoors, implying she should confine herself while the stalker roamed freely—an idea she rejected.
She volunteered to run early mornings as bait to catch him, but police declined to endanger a civilian. Instead, they deployed female officers in similar scenarios, though the man didn't take the bait. Equipped with her phone and pepper spray, she persisted with runs, noting, "Running out of fear is motivating," and improved her speed that season.
The camera soon captured evidence. Two days after installation, the detective showed her footage from the previous morning: a "fuzzy gray ghost on a bike" entering and exiting the frame, followed minutes later by her own figure in a tank top running in the same direction. "He had been waiting for me, and I’d had no idea he was there," she recounted. More alarmingly, the detective disclosed that years earlier, the man had assaulted a female runner in the city's park, dragging and pinning her to the ground.
Sharing this with her boyfriend, she heard his concern: "That’s awful. Are you running tomorrow morning?" He asked her to text when she left and returned "so I know you’re safe." Frustrated, she challenged, "What are you going to do if I don’t text?" Acknowledging his helplessness, she reflected on her own shifting sense of fearlessness: "I’d always been so proud of how fearless I was, but the creeper had broken me." Ultimately, she set up a Peloton in her guest room, a concession to caution.
As winter approached, police predicted the flasher's activity would wane to avoid the cold, and neighborhood reports via a text group confirmed fewer sightings. Sporadic encounters persisted—he intersected her path during an afternoon run, parked to watch her rake leaves, and observed as she and her children unloaded groceries. By the time she and her boyfriend had been dating for about two years, the incidents ceased entirely, allowing her to sell the Peloton on Facebook.
Her boyfriend reacted unexpectedly: "That was sudden. It makes me feel like you might wake up one morning and just get rid of me." She joked, "I would never do that. At least not on Facebook," interpreting his words as a sign of deep affection and her control in the relationship. Six months later, plans solidified for him to move nearby, promising constant security and shared holidays. But as he discussed packing boxes and moving trucks, she uncovered the truth: he had been married throughout their three-year relationship, deceiving both her and his wife.
The revelation turned their bond into a "mirage," she wrote. Weeks later, she spotted the flasher walking hand-in-hand with a girlfriend, their foreheads tilted intimately. The detective had mentioned he stayed out of trouble when partnered, calming him much like her boyfriend had reassured her. Yet, she contrasted them starkly: "I wish my boyfriend had been more like the creeper in some ways. Maybe if he acted like a terrible person, I could have protected myself... But my boyfriend was an exquisite liar. He was much worse than the flasher on the bike. At least that guy was honest about his creepiness."
Despite the betrayal, the experience reshaped her outlook. Friends expected trust issues, but instead, it underscored the value of emotional security. When pursuing a new relationship with a kind, seemingly unmarried man, she insisted on proof—a copy of his divorce decree—before deepening ties. They married, and now occasionally run in the dark together, a testament to reclaimed freedom. The essay, part of HuffPost's personal storytelling series, invites pitches for similar compelling narratives, emphasizing themes of resilience amid violation and deception.