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People are telling others that I'm a stalker. How do I make them stop?
billwill
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is so juvenile, and I normally don't care, but I think this has the opportunity to spill over to other parts of my life that matter. And it's about facebook. 
Ok, so, I'm in college. Back in high school, freshman year, this guy i knew (pseudo-friend) pranked me. He created a fake AIM and started messaging the hot girls in class, saying real creepy stuff and pretending to be me. He kept this up throughout the entire high school career, messaging three girls (two of them used to be friends with me but then stopped because of this). One of them is K (the one that was first messaged), the high school slut. J is the one that I still talked to, and I think she generally believed me, but we've never been close. M and I talked a long time, and I helped her through her relationships, until apparently I was brought up by K as a superfreak, because M started getting messages from a creepy stalker while we were talking (courtesy of my now mortal enemy [he left junior year]).
I've tried explaining this to them, but I haven't really tried very hard, because I haven't lost much. They're just three girls, and so I've let it slide for a while now.
Until about a week ago. M calls me up out of nowhere, and I think that she wants to patch things up (she was always the nicest, or so I thought). It turns out she was just trying to sell me something because she is apparently involved in a pyramid scheme yet is too dumb to know it. After I explained to her what is was, we stopped talking again, but I at least had hope that this shit was over.
Yesterday, M and K take a webcam photo on Facebook, with the subtitle being how much of a creep I am. Well shit, they know all my friends from high school, and I don't feel like having to deal with explaining it to all my friends and potentially losing my acquaintances. They keep on talking about how weird I am in the comments ("creep of the century"), and they have alluded to the fact that they are "writing a book about it", which of course isn't a book but probably a message/series of posts that they will put on facebook.
So now this whole thing has spread from a few dumb girls to all my friends and people I know, and even possibly having repercussions in my professional world, since I know some employers do searches and I even have some of my current professors as friends on facebook. I tried explaining again how they are wrong, but they just told me not to talk to them.
How would libel apply in this situation? What can I threaten?
Oh, I should also mention that I have email evidence from the asshole friend admitting that this is all him, and I've offered to forward it to them many times.
This is extraordinarily frustrating.
Ok, so, I'm in college. Back in high school, freshman year, this guy i knew (pseudo-friend) pranked me. He created a fake AIM and started messaging the hot girls in class, saying real creepy stuff and pretending to be me. He kept this up throughout the entire high school career, messaging three girls (two of them used to be friends with me but then stopped because of this). One of them is K (the one that was first messaged), the high school slut. J is the one that I still talked to, and I think she generally believed me, but we've never been close. M and I talked a long time, and I helped her through her relationships, until apparently I was brought up by K as a superfreak, because M started getting messages from a creepy stalker while we were talking (courtesy of my now mortal enemy [he left junior year]).
I've tried explaining this to them, but I haven't really tried very hard, because I haven't lost much. They're just three girls, and so I've let it slide for a while now.
Until about a week ago. M calls me up out of nowhere, and I think that she wants to patch things up (she was always the nicest, or so I thought). It turns out she was just trying to sell me something because she is apparently involved in a pyramid scheme yet is too dumb to know it. After I explained to her what is was, we stopped talking again, but I at least had hope that this shit was over.
Yesterday, M and K take a webcam photo on Facebook, with the subtitle being how much of a creep I am. Well shit, they know all my friends from high school, and I don't feel like having to deal with explaining it to all my friends and potentially losing my acquaintances. They keep on talking about how weird I am in the comments ("creep of the century"), and they have alluded to the fact that they are "writing a book about it", which of course isn't a book but probably a message/series of posts that they will put on facebook.
So now this whole thing has spread from a few dumb girls to all my friends and people I know, and even possibly having repercussions in my professional world, since I know some employers do searches and I even have some of my current professors as friends on facebook. I tried explaining again how they are wrong, but they just told me not to talk to them.
How would libel apply in this situation? What can I threaten?
Oh, I should also mention that I have email evidence from the asshole friend admitting that this is all him, and I've offered to forward it to them many times.
This is extraordinarily frustrating.
I hate you and you hate me.
billwill on
0
Posts
I think your best course of action is to post on Facebook once and address this situation.
"There is a nasty rumor going about talking about how I'm a creepy stalker. This is a horrible hurtful lie and I would like to ask those involved to stop. If you do hear these rumors, please put into consideration what you already know about me."
And then don't address it again unless someone brings it up with you.
And this won't ever go to court...I just want to know if it can go to court. I am very sure if it could go to court, it would scare them into stopping.
All you're doing is feeding the trolls. Ignore them. It will go away.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Seriously. IGNORE IT. Do not confront anyone. They will take that as an excuse to vilify you even more. When you don't give them attention, they'll stop. You're worrying WAY too much about this.
You see, I already blocked them yesterday, so as far as they know, I don't have any way to see what they are writing.
I checked with my buddy's account, though, and they are still talking bad things about me in the picture comments, which is what leads me to believe that they aren't trying to get a rise out of me.
I think you're reading WAY too much into some people just being juvenile within their little group. I seriously doubt they're going out of their to inform everyone and anyone about you and your supposed stalking habits. These people are obviously idiots and this will all just fade away. Trust me, one word from you to them and you might as well have just tossed a can of gas into the camp fire.
If you need to, do what Improvolone mentioned and address it once to your friends, just mentioning there's a rumor being spread by childish people .
Are these girls being unreasonable? (Aside the the stupid pyramid scheme thing?) Well, I don't think so. If I had received "real creepy" texts for years on end, HELL YES I would be warning my friends about the guy I thought was texting me.
You can try to convince them otherwise, but why should they believe you? They've been suffering three years of harassing texts from someone using your name while you sat back not caring about it because it was "just three girls."
Your best bet is to privately explain the situation to friends when/if it comes up.
I tried very hard in the beginning, but they wouldn't have any of it.
And its not like it was three year of harassing texts...he did it like once a year, to each girl. And only through AIM. I also cut off all contact with him when I found out he was doing it.
Look, this is slightly too complicated for a few paragraphs to summarize, so picking apart a few of my quickly thrown together sentences to find justification for these girls isn't appropriate.
If these girls are drama llamas, the odds are your mutual friends know this or will pick up on it quickly. Just ignore them (the girls) and explain it to your friends if they mention it. Do not try to sue them for libel, that will turn "drama" into "OMG DRAMA!!1"
Don't even go there. This is not something that's going to any court nor should it even be encouraged. Threatening them with it is also a TERRIBLE idea. Just stop.
Well, I'm just trying to answer the question. For the most part, I agree with you. However, there are laws designed to protect people from this kind of damage to reputation. If the OP feels this is serious enough to take legal action then he is within his rights to do so.
It very obviously is not though, so don't even encourage him. If he did try, he'd just waste a bunch of money, get laughed out of court, and make the situation even worse.
Remember that case where the girl's mother harassed someone with a fake account on MySpace and caused the girl to commit suicide? THAT didn't even get prosecuted.
Totally different issue. There weren't actually any laws on the books to deal with the mother's specific brand of harassment. The OP's issue would fall under one of the 4 privacy torts, either defamation or (more likely) false light. It would however depend on how his state handled those torts (especially as not all states recognize false light).
Location: taking ur pix
heheh..
Club page? What do you mean?
So far, they just have me in an image.
But yeah, I guess I'll just ignore it...it's going to get worse though, I can feel it.
"what, i thought he was a nice guy???"
"OMG NO HES A STALKER LOLOLOL"
It is getting very hard not to acknowledge them...
Never speak to that friend again. Unfriend him, block him, ignore him, assuming you have not already done so. If any of these people speak to you via any medium, don't respond. Don't bring it up to other friends, go deaf to the whole thing and everyone involved, pretend it doesn't exist.
I'm not sure how many more ways there are to say that same thing, but that's what you want to do. Some people never really graduate from high school. Don't let them suck you back down with them.
Contact Facebook, tell them that people are spreading shit about you. They'll remove anything that has to do with you from these peoples accounts. They may even suspend their accounts. They won't contact these girls to tell them what they did, they will just act.
Ignore everything they do and report it to facebook
PAX Prime Security Team Lead
PAX Dev Security Manager
Honestly...
Currently painting: Slowly [flickr]
If you're in college, find another crew to hang with. Don't talk to these people as they are not your friends.
But...but...the internet is serious business!
When I was growing up, this would have been so laughable.
I think contacting the police to ask them about internet bullying is a good idea that no harm can come from. Do not however tell anyone, especially these girls, that you have gone to the police.
This is such typical bullshit highschool drama, that the ONLY FEASIBLE ANSWER, is ignore it.
I've had much much worse allegations thrown up against me online, and anyone who is anyone knows that it's baloney. Seriously, block and ignore, block and ignore, block and ignore, this is no different than chatty girls sitting across the row from you in the lunchroom, do you get up and confront them and tell them if they don't stop you'll file police reports and have them arrested or do you ignore it because you know they're full of it?
You ignore it. the people who've said that taking any action is just going to feed the flames are 110% correct.
These girls don't have it in for you, this story is just the drama of the week during a slow gossip week, if you completely ignore it, it'll be completely blown over by the next time one of their friends breaks up with her boyfriend.
Can you imagine the 30 year veteran getting this phone call?
"Someone is being gossipy about you on the internet. Ok...."
Currently painting: Slowly [flickr]
Everyone here who's saying 'Ignore it' is right. They just don't mean 'Ignore it completely' and super-glue those blinkers to your face so you can pretend this never happened, la-la-la.
Just offer a short concise explanation to the parties involved that you are still talking to and say that this little fantasy of theirs (don't use that exact phrase, use something teenage girls would understand) is really annoying. Tell them that they are just parts of [Douchebag]'s fucked-up joke. Tell them it would be really nice (and that you'd really appreciate it, etc. they're more likely to respond to positive language) if they could stop spreading that rumor about you and that if they insist, that you don't want anything to do with them at all.
^- Use Improv's first response as a template.
Actually, be sure (either way) to tell them that. Nothing would be more un-stalker-like than asking them to leave you alone. This only works if you make no attempt at contact besides the short explanation offered earlier. (This advice is also offered with the caveat that, given past experience, they just might try to spin that action as somehow being stalker-ish. It shouldn't hold much traction.)
Don't threaten them with legal action right off the bat. You'd just be egging them on. And most likely, unless you have a lawyer lined up RIGHT NOW that you CAN AFFORD, it would be a stupid bluff. And then they'd feel justified in harassing you even more, just because you approached it so negatively.
And leave it at that. Then you ignore it (and them) completely.
It is now not important what these girls do. You are advised to do damage control as long as you are not dignifying their little shenanigans with a direct response.
And have a short canned explanation if any new friends you might make ask about it. Don't offer this explanation unless they ask about it specifically.
And clamp down on your Facebook profile and untag any photos or mentions of you that you don't like.
Holy shit, untag is a godsend. Get Facebook to take down their group. Don't talk to them or try to get them to take it down if they didn't listen to you before. This is one time in life where it's safe and justifiable to go behind their backs and tattle.
The lesson here is (as trite and hokey as it is): Nature abhors a vacuum. These little fantasies or delusions these girls have were in some way influenced by a need to fill in the gaps. Since your douchebag 'friend' helped them fill in those blanks in such a negative manner, it colored every interaction you had with them. You might have done absolutely nothing wrong, and they'd still choose to view your actions in this light.
All of those girls are just social dead-ends. Cut all ties.
You didn't deserve this. To quote Futurama, life is hilariously cruel.
Safeguard your reputation in the future. If this happens again, ask yourself "What did I do that could have been misinterpreted?"
Also, you're in college now... and have been for 4 months by now, right? Do these girls go to the same college? Are they really that intent on harassing you?
Edit: Damnit, I should've read the second page.
This is just more high school bullshit, like you guys were saying, and I freaked out over nothing. I tend to do that.
Anyway, I've ignored it completely, and blocked K and M. I saw through my friend's account, however, that J chastised them for being so immature and that what they were doing was unnecessary and cruel. She also sent me a long apology message, so it's all good.
And what the fuck was I thinking? Legal action? Goddamn, I am embarrassed.