Here's a first, my first co-authored article!
Disclaimer: This article is purely non fictional and any resemblence to real life is totally intentional. The names of some people have been changed to protect their identity (though the stalkers I'm sure will recognize themselves :P). Do NOT miss the video in the end.
Well stalkers. Who are they? Usually its celebrities who have crazy people following them around and observing their every move. But this isn't completely true. Chances are if your are an above average looking girl (or guy for that matter) , you'll have your encounter with this particular species of people whom we shall hence forth call stalkers.
Stalkers can be classified into 2 broad categories: 1. The friend-turned-creep stalker 2. The stranger-who knows-you-better-than-your-mom stalker. Lets just call them #1 and #2 for now shall we.
Well I will be focusing on type #1 since I'm well uh.. a little over qualified in this area of expertise. For starters who is this person?
Well lets say Rachel has a close friend Shirley. Now Shirley starts dating a guy. After say a couple of dates Rachel and other friends of Shirley meet this guy umm Nate. Now, they all chat have a nice time discussing their common tastes in music etc etc. A few days later Shirley dumps Nate because they just aren't getting along. But Nate still texts Rachel once a while. Initially Rachel is nice to Nate just out of pure courtesy. Soon there's a day Nate tells her that he finds her a lot more attractive than Shirley. Now Rachel freaks out out and starts completely ignoring Nate.
So what does Nate do?
1. He texts and texts and is pretty much having complete one way conversations with Rachel's phone.
2. Then he starts calling her non stop. If she picks up and talks the madness dies down for a while. If she ignores his calls he just keeps at it with renewed vigor.
3. He stalks her on Facebook, Orkut and every other social networking site. he visits the profiles of people (especially guys) whom she seems to be close to.
You get the picture. Surprising as it may sound its not hard handling a Nate. Now here's how you go about it.
1. Tell Nate that you have a boyfriend whom you love a lot (Make up an imaginary boyfriend if you have to!!)
2. Tell Nate that you think hes a really nice guy and deserves a girl who can love him.. yeah you might wanna practice mush movie dialogues first. And please add that your sure he's too nice a guy to get in the way of your true love.
3. Then slowly and steadily cut him out. Do not do it in a single shot. Guys like Nate take that as a form of encouragement.
Now for my next stalker ehh Paul.. I have amalgamated the traits of a few different guys since they are all very similar.
Here's the scenario: Annie is a friendly girl. She's sometimes a little too nice to people. Then there's Paul. Paul is a good friend of Annie's brother( or could be her class mate or even her boss!!). Basically Annie cannot just cut Paul out her life due to certain circumstances. Things with Paul start off fine. They talk, they say hi when they run into each other they IM a lot (ok make that he IMs her a lot). So when did things start getting ugly?
There are quite a few ways this can go bad. Say they dated for a while and Annie decides he's just sooo not the one. The more likely scene is that Paul starts hitting on her. And she just doesn't see him 'that' way. So she starts avoiding him as much as possible.
So does Paul take the hint and let it go? NO!
1. Like Nate he keeps track of her every potential date, and every other aspect of her social life through some networking site.
2. He texts her, IMs all on the pretext of catching up or some genuine discussion about home work or work.
3. He reads every line and word of her every blog post (if she has one).
4. Similarities with Nate end right there. While Nate wasn't really dangerous this guy takes it a notch higher. He actually confronts Annie every chance he gets about her(maybe imaginary) boyfriend. And he's never happy with just his name. He wants to know every little thing about him. And then he logs onto some networking site and stalks all the guys who fit this description.
5. If say Annie was really seeing someone or she just happened to give away the name of a guy friend, pretty soon Paul tracks him down and can even have him physically followed.
6. Now, lets say Paul wasn't THAT bad. He'd still keep trying to convince Annie to dump this other guy.
So what does poor Annie do?? She cant just cut him out like how Rachel cut Nate out.
1. For starters she shouldn't give him too many details of anything she does.
2. Now the good thing about Facebook, is that you can cut out portions of your profile or pictures from some people and they wont even know they've been cut out! (This can have ugly consequences if the person see's a big lock symbol where your pics are supposed to be like in some other networking sites.)
3. Find something disgusting to do in the presence (online or live) of Paul to totally turn him off.
4. Here's something important. If Annie has to cook up a boyfriend, say to protect the identity of her real one or just that she doesn't have one) she has to keep her story straight from day one. Paul will be constantly looking for chinks in the armour.
5. Pray and hope that he'll eventually loose interest.
Well this is just one broad category. There's a second category #2. This ones different because he's a complete stranger! Atleast with #1 you knew something about their personality to know whats dangerous and whats not. With #2 you can never tell! And more often than not #2 will often have access to the girl's (or guy's) college, work place etc. But more importantly what sets #2 apart from one is the way he'll/she'll know every intimate detail about their victim. For more on how to identify #2 and how to get rid of a #2 visit http://soumya-hintofme.blogspot.com/2009/04/stalker-scare.html
On a more humorous note check this out... my dedication to all the guys who took the pains to stalk me!
