Why do people "stalk"?

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I've found this thread very interesting. I actually left WP because I had an online stalker.

Although he doesn't consider himself to be a stalker. Even after I gave him advice not to comment on absolutely everything on my facebook wall. He then started to send me personal messages on facebook about what he had seen on my wall. I told him to stop and leave me alone. Even then he didn't consider himself a stalker.

After I deleted my facebook account he tracked me down through every online account that I had. I had to delete everything, change my email address and my phone number (the phone number was so his friend couldn't contact me anymore and pass information about me onto him. I had added him on facebook because he was a friend of a friend) I had to cut the cord and stop him gaining any new information about me and building on his obsession with me. It was awful.

He even, after searching for me online, emailed through a work site for my professional work to ask why I had deleted everything. I seriously hope I never encounter him ever again. Very traumatic experience. The greatest problem was that he couldn't understand what he was doing wrong.

How difficult is it to understand the words "leave me alone, do not contact me again!"

Stalking is never cool. I was stalked by two psycho girls ("friends" with each other) in the past and through no fault of my own. They just had to be in my life unfortunately.

That's why I'm very hesitant about giving out personal information (like name and such) to anyone here.

Not difficult, although him not understanding the reason may have contributed to his continued attempts at contact.

I may have found a real-life stalker.......

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt164432.html

What do you think? Is my DX correct?

They may think you mean for the rest of the day. So they stop contacting you and then start again the next day. I had a hard time understanding "again" as a kid so my mom had to tell me "Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day, not next week or next month or next year, never" and it worked because she had to be that clear. I didn't even understand what "anymore" meant either. I just start again the next day. Now I just assume it means, Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day, not next week or next month or next year, never.

Also I would have just kept blocking him and not accept any new friends request unless I knew them or unless they said who they were on a forum you go to. I would also make my own Facebook profile private, everything.

Was that guy aspie by any chance or autistic or NT?

He may of thought she was playing very hard to get

Thank you so much for this explaination. I think you may be right. Yes he is an aspie. He just wants to have someone to talk to that understands him. But I've realised that I don't really actually understand as well as I thought I did.

I only accept friend requests from people I've met now.



That was the most difficult thing about the situation. His not understanding. I gave him a few chances and some advice to help him reel in his enthusiasm, but realised that the only thing I could do was be clear and direct and tell him no, this has to stop. I felt awful too. I don't like being mean. My friends were not sympathetic towards him. But I bet his friends think I'm the nut because I went all mental and told him to leave me alone. Ho hum.

I dread running into him again. The stalker knows that they are a nice person, they probably are, and all they want is for you to see them for who they really are, see past all the over-enthusiastic pestering for attention. If only you can give them one more chance... But that much harassment makes the person being pestered (me) want to shut out the stalker forever, like a scared dog backed into a corner, I bite. People need to be given space.

There's no one reason why someone would stalk someone else. Like anything in life, everyone takes different routes to get to the same place. Anyone putting simple explanations to something so complex are just plain wrong ( like that first post, delusional i think someone put it down to, what?).

I remember being 14-15 and being very shy, I really liked this girl but there was zero chance of me ever speaking to her ( and as it happens girls, I've seen pictures of her on FB recently, she is in no way a perfect looking girl, she was just perfect for me). When the school bus would drive past her house I'd look to see if i could see her, and sometimes I'd walk home and my choice of route ( not actually going out of my way) would lead past her house and again I'd look to see if i could see her. In a sense that was stalking. I made zero attempts otherwise to speak to her. It's not that I'm bad looking, I'm obviously intelligent and represented my school for multiple sports and since then I've spent time in the forces so physically I've always been the equal of other males at the very least. It's just that I'm an introvert and can't communicate very well.

I actually feel sorry for a lot of people labelled as stalkers in this day and age, just being interested in a girl seems to be considered stalking. I've read a million stories in times gone by where a guy has spent a while trying to get a girl to go out with him and it seems to me that it was once considered romantic when finally the girl gave in and they started dating. Now the girl will call the police if the guy seems too interested, how pathetic is that?

And yeah, i know there are stories out there about weirdo stalkers, but MOST people aren't like that, the weirdos are the exceptions to the rule , NOT the rule.

See what i mean, that guy never stood a chance, dismissed before he opened his mouth. Your loss really, imagine blanking someone that thought so highly of you.

because they have not had their eyes cut out.

i learned that potatoes with "eyes" must have them cut out, or they will stalk all over the place, and so i guess i can apply what i learned from that that lesson to the rest of my life.

Friends are like potatoes....if you eat them they die. Potatoes ftw!

Last edited by TechnoMonk on 16 Jun 2011, 9:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

Of course there are various reasons, that's why weren't having a discussion about it and why everyone has a different response to this question. Just because a topic is complex doesn't mean we shouldn't try and understand it.




Your 15 year old shyness experience was not stalking. I think most teenagers do that when they have a crush. Don't patronise me. I suffered constant harassment from someone whom I wanted to leave me alone. He had plenty of opportunities to express himself and I found that increasingly I did not like him. This does not mean that he is a bad person, it just means that I don't like him and I have a right to chose whom I want as a friend.

Plus no one has the right to make another person feel uncomfortable or scared. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable you have the right to protect yourself, to walk away or call the police.

Imagine not having enough self esteem to blank someone who is harassing you and letting it keep going on until it drives you demented.

i agree. i am not particularly fond of potatoes.

Well MOST people aren't stalkers. You say that people get labelled as stalkers too often but from your post I get the impression that you use a very broad definition yourself. As Musicboxforever said I don't think that teenage shyness experience could be labelled as stalking unless you made the girl you liked feel scared and intimidated by your behavior.
Also - anyone who's ever been stalked will tell you that there is absolutely nothing romantic about it!

It's an interesting idea though.......as girls tend to play hard to get and give mixed messages as a normal part of the courtship ritual, how does an Aspie find the happy medium between taking a playful "no" too seriously, and assuming "no" is meaningless and therefore stalking?

Hmm that's a good question. Reminds me of a scene in Pride and Prejudice where Mr Collins proposes to Lizzy:

She refuses and he says:

``You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these: -- It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of De Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in its favor; and you should take it into farther consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall chuse to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.''

``I do assure you, Sir, that I have no pretension whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.''

Exactly. His approach was prettty lousy though wasn't it? Typical bloke. And I think he was wrong about the purpose of the hard-to-get game. At least, in my experience it doesn't enhance my ardour one bit. So her reply really meant no, I take it? I wouldn't have stuck around for more after that.