General

This was actually a long time ago. And this also isn't someone who was into me (probably). I actually have no idea what their motive was, but I suppose knowing would not be relevant anymore.

This happened back in high school where there was this one kid who would be in I believe at least 2 of the same classes as me. The first day, the guy walked up to me and introduced himself. I did as well, but when I went to go about my business, the guy wouldn't leave me alone. This was also a large school, with over 4000 students, so the guy could choose to go anywhere else. But for 1/4 of my school day, the guy would just lurk behind me, even as I would talk with other friends occasionally.

Now I know this might just seem like a shy individual who wanted to make a friend or two, but even when I would talk to him, he would talk in a fairly creepy tone. And I mean that he would draw out his vowels for awkwardly long periods of time, followed by occasional deap breathing.

Well, this was just the first few days, and I tried dismissing it to the best of my ability, occasionally asking the guy to leave me alone. Sometimes he would leave, other times he seemed to make excuses (although perhaps they were not; unverified) like saying that he had to walk the same way to his next class.

Anyway, by the end of a week or two, we had to select seats for our various classes. With the guy being in 2 of my classes, he decided to take the seat right behind me. Now normally I would just be slightly creeped out, but would attempt to tolerate it. Well that tolerance gradually wore thin as day after day he would poke me from the back with a pencil or quite literally bang his desk against the back of my chair.
After a few weeks of patiently telling him to stop on multiple occasions and to leave me alone, he finally got the point when I threatened to go to the dean/principal/higher-up about it. While he backed off, he would still trail behind me at a distance whenever I walked the school halls after said classes. This continued for an entire year, with several friends actually backing me up and tagging along with me and helping me stay away from the guy.

As a patient, tolerant individual, I decided to leave him at that for the rest of the year. Part of me thinks that he just wanted to be friends, although the way the guy went about it was uncomfortable on so many levels.

In the end, the guy ended up moving someplace and I never heard from or about him again.

Yep.

Senior year of HS. I had broken up with a guy and he didn't take it well. Knew where I lived and worked.

Would text/call my younger at sister at home to find out where I was, call in to my job to see if I was working, and call me from blocked numbers to try to talk to me. This went on for about a month or so, and then finally subsided.

Another instance. My foster mom and biological mom are both abusive to some degree. A year ago, I left one afternoon and have tried not to look back. Ditched my phone, packed a suitcase and called it a day. Well, they showed up to my job (I teach) the next morning, talked to my boss, was shown my classroom, before I let my job know they can't be allowed there. They knew where I was staying, so they'd stake out the house to try to see me. They'd go to my then partner's job and harass him. Talk to his family to try to hunt me down. Two months later, I moved to another place a half hour away, and I changed jobs this May to try to not run into either of them.

I still hear that they're seen on occasion, but the general fear of running into them has subsided. I know that they don't have power over me anymore, and I don't have any reason to be nervous or scared, but lots of reasons pushed me to leave in the first place.

Welp.
Thanks for reading.

Oh yes.

I have a grayface stalker on Feabie who somehow knows me.

Mate that could be triggering to sombody here!

You don't brag about that!

The biggest problem with stalking or similar behavior is that there is no sense of boundary and in a sick way, the stalker knows it. So even if you assert it, they are not going to respect it. Anyone who sees a boundary as a challenge is a threat. Anyone. If they don't respect the little ones, they are not going to respect the big ones. And that's worse with stalkers because if you set one of those: "Stop following me," or "leave me alone" guess what that makes them do? The opposite.

Stalking starts with little things like that that a target may not even notice. With the exception of street randos, once you get to the "visibly following" stage they've done a lot more work than the target knows.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker is one of those books that should be mandatory reading, especially for those extra-susceptible to stalking.

It's definitely not. Dude backed off because he got caught. Promise if he's started something like that once, he will absolutely do it again, and just be "better" at it.

Unfortunately that kind of optimism is what gets victims trafficked or killed. The data on stalker behavior says otherwise. It's never just once, whether it's the same target or multiple. They do it over and over.

John Smith, what got you so worked up? Are you just trolling on the Finnish guy? Or are you thinking he and the little proud stalker are the same person? I am so sorry that you have experienced stalking in your life but tbh I don’t see why you get so worked up about that one person?

Let’s see what this thread is really about, is it about stalking? Yes? So okay let’s continue with talking about our experiences with that instead of bashing other members like for nothing.

I have been stalked, thrice in my life. Was not cool. One was just a random guy and two were exes. Luckily none of the guys was able to do something bad to me and they just gave after a year or two.

Well it seems so illogical that you create an interesting topic like this and then react in an incongruent way. So it causes a bit of confusion and the wish to understand why this is happening.

[quote]AnorexicPretty:
John Smith, what got you so worked up? Are you just trolling on the Finnish guy? Or are you thinking he and the little proud stalker are the same person? I am so sorry that you have experienced stalking in your life but tbh I don’t see why you get so worked up about that one person?

John Smith:

John, you seem like a smart guy, Why is it that you so often hijack threads to take them into political directions that were never intended? This seems, pun intended, to be a common thread with you. Then when called on it, you switch to abuse of the one who called you out.

You really need to rethink this approach to things. It makes it really hard to have substantive discussions, does not change anyone's views, and is certainly not the pathway to popularity.