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Women can stalk men too. I'm a man who has been mildly stalked. By "mildly" I mean that the two situations that stand out in my memory never developed into anything worse than an annoyance (in one case kind of a significant annoyance, but still just an annoyance).
Both situations basically involved women who didn't interest me in any romantic kind of way getting attracted to me and then kind of being overly aggressive in pursuing me--always following me around, dropping by uninvited (like, every day), that kind of thing.
One of them happened to mention to me in an offhand conversation when her birthday was. You know, the way it comes up casually in conversation sometimes, like, When's your birthday . . . Feb. 29 . . . when's yours, that kind of thing. Then when her birthday rolled around several months later, she called me, all upset that I hadn't remembered her birthday or called her up to do something special to celebrate, etc. All she was to me was a girl who was in my circle of friends, and I never did anything to indicate otherwise. Though this situation never got out of hand, the kind of presumption that we had something special going that would lead her to assume that I had made note of her birthday, and would of course be planning something special for her, sounds to me like exactly the kind of thing women encounter with male stalkers who refuse to see that the woman isn't interested.
With both of these women, after they had followed me around like my shadow for a number of months, my feeling was like, Hey, get a clue: If I had any interest in you I would have asked you out by now. In fact, I told both of them straight out that I wasn't interested. In fact, I told one of them I wasn't interested after she asked me whether I was. Neither one took the direct statement that I wasn't interested to heart, as both kept pursuing me.
One of these situations happened in college. That's the one that really became a significant annoyance, in part because there were other girls I WAS attracted to, who seemed like real possibilities, but who made themselves scarce when the one girl kept pursuing me. Thing was, she followed me around so much that people started assuming we were really an item, since they saw us together all the time. I started guessing that the reason some other girls were keeping their distance was that they too assumed I was dating this girl and thought I was off limits. It was kind of a small college, so eventually I learned through the grapevine that this was exactly what was happening. I also learned after a while that my "stalker" even had a network of friends helping her, telling her when they'd seem me around campus so she could go to where I was hanging out and "happen" to encounter me there, etc.
Anyway, both these situations were really a pain, especially the one that happened in college, but they were nothing worse than a real pain. Still, I think these situations never became dangerous mostly because the women involved, while they may have been emotionally needy, were basically normal, not sick or crazy or anything like that. If either one had been at all over the edge, I can easily see how the situation could have been really bad news. And, I'm sure that does happen.
Wow, some interesting stories here. Definitely women can be stalkers. I've had friends who became obsessed with guys who stopped calling them. It seems it's usually when the one doing the breaking up isn't VERY clear that it's over because the one dumped can't face the fact & will reinterpret everything said.
Women can stalk men too. I'm a man who has been mildly stalked. By "mildly" I mean that the two situations that stand out in my memory never developed into anything worse than an annoyance (in one case kind of a significant annoyance, but still just an annoyance).
Both situations basically involved women who didn't interest me in any romantic kind of way getting attracted to me and then kind of being overly aggressive in pursuing me--always following me around, dropping by uninvited (like, every day), that kind of thing.
One of them happened to mention to me in an offhand conversation when her birthday was. You know, the way it comes up casually in conversation sometimes, like, When's your birthday . . . Feb. 29 . . . when's yours, that kind of thing. Then when her birthday rolled around several months later, she called me, all upset that I hadn't remembered her birthday or called her up to do something special to celebrate, etc. All she was to me was a girl who was in my circle of friends, and I never did anything to indicate otherwise. Though this situation never got out of hand, the kind of presumption that we had something special going that would lead her to assume that I had made note of her birthday, and would of course be planning something special for her, sounds to me like exactly the kind of thing women encounter with male stalkers who refuse to see that the woman isn't interested.
With both of these women, after they had followed me around like my shadow for a number of months, my feeling was like, Hey, get a clue: If I had any interest in you I would have asked you out by now. In fact, I told both of them straight out that I wasn't interested. In fact, I told one of them I wasn't interested after she asked me whether I was. Neither one took the direct statement that I wasn't interested to heart, as both kept pursuing me.
One of these situations happened in college. That's the one that really became a significant annoyance, in part because there were other girls I WAS attracted to, who seemed like real possibilities, but who made themselves scarce when the one girl kept pursuing me. Thing was, she followed me around so much that people started assuming we were really an item, since they saw us together all the time. I started guessing that the reason some other girls were keeping their distance was that they too assumed I was dating this girl and thought I was off limits. It was kind of a small college, so eventually I learned through the grapevine that this was exactly what was happening. I also learned after a while that my "stalker" even had a network of friends helping her, telling her when they'd seem me around campus so she could go to where I was hanging out and "happen" to encounter me there, etc.
Anyway, both these situations were really a pain, especially the one that happened in college, but they were nothing worse than a real pain. Still, I think these situations never became dangerous mostly because the women involved, while they may have been emotionally needy, were basically normal, not sick or crazy or anything like that. If either one had been at all over the edge, I can easily see how the situation could have been really bad news. And, I'm sure that does happen.
Your very fortunate...you know, when I was still dating, I spoke with a fella, whose so called fatal attraction, came into his home, and cut him with a knife....she almost cut his ear, clean off.
People are nuts...yanno...and that is part of the reason, I don't date anymore...as there are many...but I just met the most God awful people. Dont' get me wrong, I did meet some very nice men, but there were more who were really not wrapped to tight.
And yes, we should have never left the men out of this....not fair...and I'm being serious...I know there are a lot of men who are physically and mentally abused. Women can be real bullies...believe me, I know one personally. She's a real class act. Mean, calculating, manipulative and she screams, and I mean screams if she doesn't like something...she is literally nuts.
Your very fortunate...you know, when I was still dating, I spoke with a fella, whose so called fatal attraction, came into his home, and cut him with a knife....she almost cut his ear, clean off.
People are nuts...yanno...and that is part of the reason, I don't date anymore...as there are many...but I just met the most God awful people. Dont' get me wrong, I did meet some very nice men, but there were more who were really not wrapped to tight.
And yes, we should have never left the men out of this....not fair...and I'm being serious...I know there are a lot of men who are physically and mentally abused. Women can be real bullies...believe me, I know one personally. She's a real class act. Mean, calculating, manipulative and she screams, and I mean screams if she doesn't like something...she is literally nuts.
Well, I'm quite confident that neither of the young ladies who got obsessed with me had problems more serious than emotional neediness. If I was very fortunate, it was because neither situation involved someone who was nuts enough to go after me with a knife and cut my ear off. I brought this up, though, because of the very kind of thing you describe here. I know that there are some nut cases out there, women as well as men, so I'm aware that the experiences I related in the earlier post could have been bad news if either had involved someone who was really unstable. I thought it would be good to make the point that this stalking stuff can work in both directions. Bad news all around.
Something difficult about this whole situation is determining when something escalates to the point that it truly becomes stalking. I'm sure there are people who consider it stalking if they're being pursued by someone they're not interested in. That's not really stalking as far as I'm concerned. But when does it cross that line?
Now, I said before that the two situations I encountered were mild stalking. They were mild in the sense that I never felt that I was in danger, or that my life was completely disrupted. Still, I can use those cases as examples of where it might cross the line, and becomes stalking, because both those situations went beyond normal attraction to someone.
First, there was the situation that happened while I was in college. The girl would follow me around all over the place, from the time I got out of class in the afternoon. My free time was no longer mine. There were several other girls who did interest me, and clearly returned the feeling, who kept their distance because they would see me and my "stalker" together so much, just from her following me around everywhere, that they assumed we were dating and I was off limits. That's one characteristic that might mean it's stalking:
1) when it causes significant disruption in your life. If that disruption goes even further than it did in my case, and gets to the point where you feel your safety being threatened, or feel that you can't even take care of the necessities, like getting your work done, then you've got a case of serious, dangerous stalking.
The other thing about my college situation was that it went on for months and months. Most likely the only reason it didn't persist for longer was that it happened during my senior year, so the end of the school year offered a natural ending point. As long as it did persist, the girl clearly was refusing to get the message. It should have been obvious after a while that I would have asked her out if I'd been interested. Just as I said that I don't think being pursued by someone you're not attracted to is stalking in and of itself, as long as the person does nothing threatening, controlling, or disruptive to your life I'd say it's still not stalking if someone makes a good honest attempt to get your attention and give it every reasonable chance to happen.
But there's a limit to that. At some point a person with a normal romantic interest who's getting no vibe in return will suck it up, acknowledge that it's not going to happen, cry a little, feel down for a while, and move on. So there's a second characteristic:
2) refusal to acknowledge when it becomes clear there's no chance it's going to happen.
This same refusal to face the reality that it wasn't going to happen occurred in the other situation I recounted in my first post. At one point the girl asked me straight out whether she had any chance with me, and I told her straight out that she did not . . . and she kept right on pursuing me.
Then there was that thing about her birthday--the way we casually mentioned in conversation when our birthdays were. Hers was a number of months later, and when I didn't remember after all those months, or get in touch with her on her birthday, plan something special for her, etc., she called me up all hurt and upset. There's another characteristic:
3) presuming that some kind of relationship exists, or expecting to be treated as if a relationship exists, when there's really no romantic relationship at all.
Those are a few thoughts I have. Sometimes it's hard to tell where it crosses the line. It's a judgment call. It's like the story about the judge who was asked how he could make a ruling in an obscenity case, how he could say that some book, film, photo, etc., was obscene and not legitimate art with an erotic theme. The story goes that the judge acknowledged that he might find it difficult to explain precisely what characteristics he associated with obscenity, but he then observed, "I know it when I see it." Stalking is like that. It might be hard to discern objectively just exactly where enthusiastic interest turns into stalking, but ya knows it when ya sees it.
I think it would be interesting to get people's thoughts on what the signs are that the line has been crossed. I've listed three possible characteristics of stalking. What are some others?
Hi,
My family is having a really bad time with a girl that is a girlfreind with our sons best friend, she is obbsessed with our son, she used to call our son every day and come to our house every night to see him, if he wasn't home she would call him repeatedly until he came home, all this time she was dating his best friend I'll call E, E would work evenings so this was really convinient for her, I will call her H.
Every time our son would meet a girl H would find out about it and destroy the relationship before it could even get started, finally he met a really sweet girl that stood up to H and stayed with our son, they have been together for a year now, and H has tried everything under the sun to break them up, she tells my son every oppurtunity she gets to drop his girlfreind, that he could do so much better, she tells him lies about her repeatedly, he quit answering her calls along time ago, but she would send him text messages and leave him messages on the computer, if he went into town H and E would have people watching for them and they would call them as soon as our son was spotted, they would run him down and start yelling and screaming at him until he got in his truck and left, so he quit going to that town, didn't help,, she started telling everyone and anyone that would listen lies about him that would blow your mind, he would have old and new freinds calling him and telling him he needs to do something about it, what can he do?, the last lie was that he sent her a text message saying dirty disgusting things, no-one seen the text, it was just her word on it, one last thing, the parents of our sons best freind are our best freinds, it has already destroyed our sons freindship with E and so far his parents and us have stayed freinds but not sure how long that will last, how does he stop her lies? he has severed any and all contact with H and E but nothing is helping and I'm almost afraid of what she will do next, any suggestions?? please help!!
Your very fortunate...you know, when I was still dating, I spoke with a fella, whose so called fatal attraction, came into his home, and cut him with a knife....she almost cut his ear, clean off.
People are nuts...yanno...and that is part of the reason, I don't date anymore...as there are many...but I just met the most God awful people. Dont' get me wrong, I did meet some very nice men, but there were more who were really not wrapped to tight.
And yes, we should have never left the men out of this....not fair...and I'm being serious...I know there are a lot of men who are physically and mentally abused. Women can be real bullies...believe me, I know one personally. She's a real class act. Mean, calculating, manipulative and she screams, and I mean screams if she doesn't like something...she is literally nuts.
Thats exactly what H does that I spoke about in my post, she will SCREAM so no one else can talk, she even went so far as to call my sons girlfreinds mother to tell her that my son was sending her dirty text messages saying he wanted her, this girl is really sick and twisted and our sons bestfreind can't see it, he is still dating her and believing every word she says, such a mess.
Also, after a call, dial *57 on your phone(only works on home phones). This is a free service that will trace the call and report it to the authorities. There needs to be 2 or more in a month.
Good luck. I had similar situations when I was younger and had a crazy tenant start calling me in November ( Thanksgiving night, to be exact!!) and leave threatening messages because she felt her concrete slab floor in her store was not level, the extra wood studs we promised ( that are there!!) were not easily found by her pounding on the walls!! I could go on and on.
Be careful. If you know who it is, pull court/criminal records. This crazy woman has 4 assault and batteries, a few abusive language convictions, harrassing phone calls, and anti dueling ( inciting an altercation with antagonistic words...an old law that is only used when someone is a PITA...pain in the a**). The point is, you never know who you've got watching or stalking.
If you need any help checking things out, write me. This is my line of business and I love it!! Seriously, if you need anything let me know and I'll try to help find out anything you might need.
yes. it happened twice with two different people. Both were exes. One stalked me physically on campus. The second stalked me physically around town, including my workplace, and then started stalking my kids. It was soooooo creepy.
The third time it happened I got a restraining order, because in retrospect, that was what I SHOULD have done the first two times. That did the trick. I even love the wording on the document it is an ORDER OF PROTECTION. The person was furious and appealed it. Even the court clerk said, "No one is crazy enough to challenge a restraining order once it is issued by the court."
Talk to the law, there are different kinds of restraining orders, one for domestic situations (i.e. lover or family member) one for non. Get the one that fits. Best thing I ever did for myself in those situations. Have not had a problem with it since in over ten years.
around here you cannot acquire a restraining order until someone has harmed you physically....
I know, it's sad...but true.....
no way! restraining order can be for all sorts of things that are threatening, did an officer of the law tell you this?
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At what point does it become stalking?
