The Robbery

I have a story about why you should ALWAYS, always, always… listen to your gut! This is a story you are going to think I made up or got out of a movie, but this 100% happened to me and I am still in disbelief over what happened, but #NORAGRETS am I right?

It all began last July on Canada Day during Covid life in 2020. I went out with two of my gorgeous girlfriends that afternoon because who doesn’t go out on Canada Day? Both my girlfriends were practicing lawyers and I was finishing up grad school at the time to become a licensed therapist/counselling psychologist. We had some champagne at my girlfriends place downtown and decided we wanted to go out, and ended up at National on the rooftop patio. We started out with a few tequila shots and ordered a bottle of rosé at the bar. I’m going to take this opportunity to add that both my girlfriends were recently single so they weren’t in the right frame of mind for making proper decisions that day; however I had been single for a long time so there is no excuse for my poor decision making that day or over the course of those few months that followed.

Flash forward to us up on the patio on that beautiful summer day, having an absolute blast! We met a bunch of people, and made “friends” and one of the girls we met invited us to their table. We agreed and went over. At this table sat two young men… and I mean really young men, (early twenties). Being a polite person, I introduced myself to both of them and shook their hand as I was seated directly in front of them on one of those picnic benches they have on their rooftop patio. They asked me what I did for work and I told them I was a grad student, almost done my degree, in the last few months of my practicum placement. They told me they were entrepreneurs. We chatted a bit, did some shots, it was fun and I thought nothing of it. I got up to go to the bathroom and this one young man who told me his name was Chris followed me to the bathroom and asked for my number! I of course told him no. I thought he was trouble from the second I met him. I went into the bathroom and a couple of the girls that we met at the table came in as well. There was one girl who asked me what he was talking to me about. I was straight up with her, I said he asked me for my number but I told him no. She was obviously not very happy, she told me he was with her. We proceeded to have a conversation about why this guy may not be good for her. After leaving the bathroom this guy was now chatting up one of my girlfriends and got her number. Soon after, we got kicked out for being too social and mingling with the other tables, which is frowned upon during Covid life. The two young men that were with this group of girls followed us out! The girls chased after them as they chased after us; I guess they couldn’t believe that these guys would just get up and leave like that. In the drunken haze of everything I remember going down the stairs from the patio and this Chris guy asking me where we were going and if we would consider going to their place. I told him to go talk to his girl and that he better not talk to me. He balked at me and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. The last thing I remember about that was watching him drive away in his white jeep and that girl staring after him as he left her there with her drunk friends. I gave her a hug on the sidewalk and told her that he wasn’t worth it and she could do so much better and that I was sorry that happened to her.

I left with my girlfriends and we went to another place to have some food. They were both pretty drunk and my one girlfriend could barely walk straight or even on her own by this time. While we were eating, my one girlfriend who we will refer to as Tiffany was texting this Chris guy that we had just met at National. After we had eaten and gone to the bathroom to take a sufficient amount of bathroom selfies together, Tiffany demanded that we go and party with these guys. My other girlfriend, who we will call Amy was very drunk and really didn’t care to go at all, we probably should have just taken her home. She didn’t want to go home though. We listened to Tiffany and got into an Uber and went to this apartment downtown. It was a little strange when we got there; there were those two guys there from the table, and one other guy there. They cracked some more alcohol open for us, a few other unmentionables, and we all were chatting for a bit. At one point I’m not even sure what had happened but I ended up in one of the bedrooms alone with this Chris guy. Amy was worried about me, and kept coming into the room to try and talk to me while we were in there. It probably should have occurred to me that we should have left right away. But after a few times of Amy coming into the room this Chris locked the door, so I was in this bedroom alone with him for probably a good hour as he tried to talk to me. Eventually my girlfriends came to the door and said that they were leaving and I needed to come with them so I left. But I also ended up giving this Chris guy my phone number…

He started texting me right away. He texted me by the time we had taken the Uber back to Tiffany’s place which was only a six minute drive. I was texting him in the Uber, it was very strange. I wasn’t used to that kind of attention. Amy was super disappointed that we didn’t take her to the strip club, but we put her to bed anyways. During that conversation that we had in the bedroom he had told me that this girl at the bar was not his girlfriend and that she was just crazy and in no way were they together. I really wasn’t sure what I was thinking at the time now that I look back. This guy wasn’t even attractive and had no sense of style. He was very persistent though and kept asking to see me, and it was only a couple days later that I agreed to see him. I met up with him downtown on a Saturday night and we went to Earl’s Tin Palace in Mission. He was actually really charming with me when we went out and we had a good time. He kept telling me how beautiful I was and opened the car door for me every time. It had been a really long time since anyone had been that nice to me, I don’t even think any of my exes had EVER opened my car door for me in my life, even when I had made mention that it would be super cute for them to do so. When we were out he told me he didn’t live in Calgary and that he was just staying with friends at the time. I should have just gone home after we went out but he wanted to hang out for a bit after and he took me back to the apartment that I had been to on Canada Day. We hung out and chatted with his buddy for a little bit. After we listened to some music and he lit up a blunt I said: “you know I should go.” He responded: “no… no… no, you should stay for a bit.” Again, we ended up back in that bedroom again and started fooling around a little bit. I definitely did not think we were going to have sex, and I kept telling him: “hey let’s slowdown. Let’s just chill, hangout.” He kept on insisting with: “no please. Just do this. Just one minute.” Everything happened pretty quickly. I’m sure you can imagine the rest. After it was all over I was kind of pissed. I immediately shut down and stopped talking to him. I told him to take me to my car right away. I pretty much went silent the whole way. He called me out on this and was pissed, basically asking me what my problem was. I didn’t really know how to answer him. I wasn’t even sure what had just happened. I told him nothing was wrong. He told me to text him when I got home and of course I didn’t, I didn’t hear anything from him either. Everything could have been over at this point. Stupidly enough, I ended up texting him a few days later. I know! I don’t know why! At one point we discussed that it wasn’t okay for him to be so aggressive and not responsive to my requests in the bedroom. He agreed and apologized and I let it go.

He ended up calling me a few days later asking me to go on a hike with him, and then he called me a few days after that and asked me if I would babysit his dog. I said no to both. What crazy requests! After a few weeks he essentially ghosted and I didn’t hear anything from him for a long time and I thought he had gone away for good and that was all over. I thought it was just a very weird interaction that I never wanted to repeat. I spent the rest of the summer having an amazing time with my girlfriends, not worried about boys, and getting through school. This whole strange story could have been over at this point if I didn’t pick up a call from a random number one afternoon.

Strangely enough, he ended up calling me in September on a different number. I basically said…why the fuck are you calling me?...And was a little rude. He said he wanted to see me. That he lost my number and he lost his phone and he’d been looking all over for my number. He told me he needed some help and wanted good friends that he could rely on. After lots of convincing and for whatever strange reason I ended up meeting up with him for a drink randomly another Saturday evening. I thought, what could the harm be? I even called Tiffany… who knew everything by the way, and she encouraged me to go hang out with him. The whole time he was trying to convince me to get involved in some kind of scam he was in on. Tiffany was also in touch with one of his buddies at this time as well and they had been hanging out a bit. That night after we had a drink and I told him I wasn’t going to get involved in whatever he was into, we made plans to meet back at his friend’s apartment so we could hang out a little bit more. When I arrived there he came to my car and told me that something with work had come up and he had to go. I called Tiffany the next morning who was still in touch with his friend. She told me that his friend told her that Chris had told him that he told me to kick rocks that night. What a ridiculous game of telephone! That was when it really started to set in that something was really off with this guy. But I dismissed it.

Essentially about a month went on with this Chris guy texting me and calling me every day and being very persistent how about chatting with me and being in touch with me constantly on my phone. I was wrapped up with school and was rather stressed with everything going on. One day I was at Tiffany’s house and he texted me saying he had gotten into a car accident. He asked me to come pick him up and we could maybe go on a little hike to take his mind off of things. It was Saturday and I had the day off so I figured why not… not a big deal right? I picked him up downtown from some random spot and we hit the highway and went to Dead Man’s Flats, where there was a little waterfall and private place to chill that I knew of.

(Just a little side bar here to any woman reading this… to never ever do this. Don’t go out of town with a guy you barely know into the wilderness, to a place that has no cell service!)

This is probably where you think the story may actually get good. But this part was relatively uneventful. But when I look back and reflect, I realize how wrong this situation could have gone for me. Other than him coaxing me into giving him a blowjob in the middle of the forest, and him low-key inferring that he had a gun on him and could easily kill me and bury my body in that area and no one would ever know… I got out of that whole situation fine and my alarm bells still weren’t ringing loud enough. On our way back he thanks me for bringing him there and told me that it was quite the experience. Still in the car we decided to order some food from Joey’s in Crowfoot. I’m starting to feel sick even just remembering this part of the story. There was something deep inside of me that was whispering… do not bring this guy to your house. Don’t let him see where you live. I even said it out loud to him… and I asked him if I could just take him back downtown. He said: “no let’s have dinner together, at your place. It will be fine don’t worry.” After picking the food up, we went back to my place. When I went to grab my house keys they were on the floor by his feet. I should add here that when we went to pick up food I went inside the restaurant to use the bathroom and left him alone in my car. I had actually left him alone in my car a few times that day. At the time I had my car keys separate from my house keys. We had dinner at my place and chatted, we even went into my bedroom to watch a show and fool around a bit. Then he asked me to order him an Uber back downtown. I thought it was really strange. I asked him: “can’t you order it yourself?” He gave me some bullshit excuse as to why he couldn’t. He gave me cash and asked for some change back which I took out of my drawer in my bedroom. I walked him out and everything that night.

The next day in the morning he gave me a call. He was very sweet on the phone and called me a sweetheart checking in to see how I was doing. I told him I was going to be out at my friend’s baby shower all afternoon. I made a dish because it was a potluck and rushed to the shower. He even texted me while I was at the shower and asked me how it was. The shower was absolutely beautiful and I was so distracted the whole time. I was so happy to have been included in the experience with my friend and was on cloud 9 that I was completely blindsided when I got home.

When I got home my front door was unlocked and the light was on. I thought to myself: could I have left my door unlocked?? No… Immediately I knew something was very off when I got in. My two cats were totally sketched out. I had an immediate panic attack. I was keeping a large sum of money in my freezer for the past couple of years. This was my G stack I had been saving from my private business. I recalled making a joke about keeping money in the freezer to him in one of our many conversations. Something about having a stash ready for the inevitable apocalypse. The money was of course gone. So was the rest of the cash that I kept in my bedroom drawer. Nothing else in my house was touched. In the middle of my panic I checked my wallet and my debit card was missing. I went on my online banking and saw that my account had been drained completely. I completely lost my mind and called my girlfriend screaming and crying on the phone. I tried calling his number and I had been blocked with the well-known sound of: “this number is no longer in service.” My girlfriend came over and we called his friend from her phone and I yelled at him. He sounded very surprised and shocked and said that he would help us. I think he was in on it too. I called the landlord to get the locks changed immediately. It was then that my girlfriend and I put some of the pieces together and realized that he had taken my house key while I was in the bathroom at Joeys, and he had run over to Lowes, (a home improvement store) which was just a parking lot away, and made a copy of my house key. I called the cops to report what happened and it took them three days to come to my house to take my statement which I ended up writing on my computer and emailing to them anyways. I needed a police report in order to get access to the cameras to report the fraud incident to my bank so that I could perhaps get my money back that had been stolen from my account. In a few weeks the police had pulled the camera footage that showed some random man taking all my money out. Even with this information and the statement I made the bank still denied my fraud claim and refused to help me. The cops also told me that this is what I get and that they hoped I had learned my lesson. Everyone pretty much had a similar response to me. How could you let this happen? Of course that was the main narrative running through my brain: “You’re so fucking stupid. This is what you get.”

I partly want this story to be an example of how the systems put in place that are designed to protect us… don’t. I also want to make note of how people put me at fault for the illegal ill intentions and actions of another individual.

I soon realized that this young man was definitely part of some organized crime group and that I had been on his radar since he met me at the bar. I really had no idea that people actually do this for a living, and that this kind of thing actually happens to people all the time. I was also shocked that he didn’t steal my credit card and that nothing in my house was destroyed. I’m just grateful now that no harm came to my kitties and that he didn’t wreck all my stuff. It’s a very difficult story for me to tell. As someone who was conditioned to narcissistic abuse as a child, I’ve learned that I’m an easy target for predators even now as an adult. It still blows my mind that people do this to other people, but more so that the systems in place that are supposed to be there to protect us fall completely short, and basically no one gives a fuck about you when things like this happen, and that it’s somehow your fault. It also looks really easy to be a criminal! I personally witnessed such a profound lack of care in our society. The lady at the bank even accused me of being involved in criminal activity and was very insulting and rude on the phone. I couldn’t even tell my parents what happened because I was so ashamed of my poor judgment. What started out as innocent fun, turned into one of the most distressing instances that’s ever happened to me and has been one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to recover from. It’s not the first time I’ve come across a predator, and it probably won’t even be the last. As a result of what happened I ended up changing my front door lock three times and got a security system installed with two different cameras…and started therapy. A few weeks later, my two closest girlfriends at the time (Tiffany and Amy) decided to take a step back from our friendship; I actually started putting up some boundaries and expressing myself…the audacity, I know. It really shook my worldview, and I was at the tail end of trying to counsel other people and finish my Master’s degree in Counselling Psychology to top it all off with some irony. I got to experience the felt feeling of what it feels like to have someone feast on my vulnerability like it was candy. I know I should be grateful it wasn’t worse, but at the time I thought it would have been kinder for him to have just raped and murdered me on the spot that night instead of him pretending to like me and doing all of this behind my back.

Needless to say, it was a very rude awakening like all great lessons in life are. I am grateful I had some other friends step in to provide some emotional support for me, but I don’t think anyone could really comprehend what I had experienced and the loss that occurred and how devastating it was for me. People think, oh it’s just money don’t worry about that. But at the time that was all the money I had during very uncertain times. The rest of the details don’t really matter aside from the fact that this guy stole a shitload of money from me, more then I even realized I was worth. You really learn who your true friends are in a time like this. As a wise person once told me, always keep your wits about you! People may seem harmless on the surface, but I think those are the ones you have to watch out for the most…duh. This is something I still carry with me, in hopes that telling this story will help me let it go, even if it’s just a little. I’ve been robbed before in foreign countries before, but nothing ever like this. Still to this day I think about what I would do if I ever saw I him again. I have dreams about hunting him down and getting revenge. We are often drawn to toxic people due to some unresolved childhood trauma and we allow them to treat us poorly, and feel the sweet comfort of this familiarity. If you often find yourself attracting a certain type of person into your life consistently, the answer to this could be somewhere in your past. But also remember that anyone can be a target… the key is to spot the red flags and not wait to see how red they get. As a woman, I have become accustomed to men being aggressive and getting what they want from me, and thinking that this is normal. This shouldn’t be the case.

I always think back to that day, Ooh…Canada day, and if I had never gone out that day none of this would’ve ever happened. Or if I had just not picked up that phone call, or if I had just stopped answering him and blocked him long ago. There were a million things I wish I had done differently. I obviously wish I had never ever gone near the guy. Now, it’s just one of those things that I had to go through that really transformed my life, and really forced some awareness into me. At the time it was fucking awful, but I don’t actually regret what happened because I always bounce back stronger, and I’m grateful I was given the opportunity to bounce back, even though there may be times I feel differently about it.

Be careful who you tell things to, who you share things with, and when you tell people you’re going places. Fuck… be very mindful who you sleep with and let into your home! I didn’t initially intend for this to be a cliché cautionary tale, but I guess that’s what it is now. I know not every guy you meet is going to be a psychopath, or a criminal, or a narcissist, but also tell that to the thousands of women who have wound up dead, missing, raped, or violated in some way. I wonder now how many women he has done this to? The funny thing is, as someone with a lot of anxiety and fear about the future, I never for one second could have predicted that this was something that could happen to me, but that’s on having blind spots in your vision. Life really does have a unique way of keeping you on your toes and teaching you lessons, or maybe it’s just me. However, it’s still incredibly shitty that when stuff like this happens to people, we point the finger back at them and they suffer more as result. I hope this story will be helpful to others, to maybe share their stories and to keep their eyes peeled for wolves in sheep’s clothing. One thing I really do hope, is that karma is a bitch, a really big bitch, that eats wolves for breakfast.

THE END