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Creepy/Stalker Guy Problem
Austera
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
There's this guy that has been stalking me since the ninth grade. I never thought much of it and am always nice to him but lately it's been getting worse.
Months ago when he signed my yearbook, he wrote "It's been ________ (some hugeass number) hours since the time we met." HOURS. o_O
We attend different universities but still communicate over msn--he instigates the conversations. A few weeks ago, he said he walked the length of a whole street to see if he could find me at work (he only knows the street name, not my workplace). This irked me a great deal but I didn't know how to respond.
Last week he got a cellphone and asked me for my number but I refused to give it to him. Actually I lied and said I didn't have a cellphone, which made him ask my friend for it. My friend didn't give it to him either. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. He recently found out about my boyfriend of three months (none of his business) and asked me if it was true I was dating someone. When I confirmed it, he started saying fucked up things like "Hmm I wonder what sort of guy you like? I'll have to kill him and examine his insides to find out.." and "If I want a girl that isn't single, I'd make sure to get rid of the boyfriend." and "So..who is he? I want to meet him. He might not like my gun though."
My boyfriend and I are getting freaked out and he wants to tell the creepy guy off but I'm paranoid the guy will get all Virginia Tech on us. Who knows?!!
I'm very nervous about the situation and have no clue what to do. So guys, what to do??
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!
Months ago when he signed my yearbook, he wrote "It's been ________ (some hugeass number) hours since the time we met." HOURS. o_O
We attend different universities but still communicate over msn--he instigates the conversations. A few weeks ago, he said he walked the length of a whole street to see if he could find me at work (he only knows the street name, not my workplace). This irked me a great deal but I didn't know how to respond.
Last week he got a cellphone and asked me for my number but I refused to give it to him. Actually I lied and said I didn't have a cellphone, which made him ask my friend for it. My friend didn't give it to him either. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. He recently found out about my boyfriend of three months (none of his business) and asked me if it was true I was dating someone. When I confirmed it, he started saying fucked up things like "Hmm I wonder what sort of guy you like? I'll have to kill him and examine his insides to find out.." and "If I want a girl that isn't single, I'd make sure to get rid of the boyfriend." and "So..who is he? I want to meet him. He might not like my gun though."
My boyfriend and I are getting freaked out and he wants to tell the creepy guy off but I'm paranoid the guy will get all Virginia Tech on us. Who knows?!!
I'm very nervous about the situation and have no clue what to do. So guys, what to do??
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!
Austera on
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Other then that though, there isn't a lot you CAN do...
The problem most people find is that it's hard to file a restraining order when you haven't actually told the person to stop contacting you. You can't just jump from point A to point C... I know people are non-confrontational, but come on...
Ah I see. Yes. Well then you better get started on that part where you tell him to stop talking to you. ASAP.
If you have this logged anywhere this needs to be printed out and given to the police. This is extremely inappropriate. If he contacts you again, tell him to stop, and be extremely clear that he does not have a relationship with you and never will.
As others have said, if he persists, document everything, get a restraining order.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
If I were you I would report him immediately.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
If he doesn't give it up, legal action is the next step you take, mon amie.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Stop communicating with him.
Let me help you: The correct response is "Dude that is fucking creepy, don't ever try to find my home or place of work. In fact, never contact me again."
Stop lying to him and tell him directly that you don't want to continue communicating with him.
First and foremost, stop allowing yourself to be victimized and stand up for yourself already! You've helped to create this situation by not nipping this in the bud a lot sooner. I'd characterize your responses to date as being passive/aggressive and wishy-washy. In the mind of a stalker, that's just playing hard to get.
My girlfriend had a guy stalking her several years ago. He'd follow he around, hiding behind bushes, watching her and taking her picture. She lost patience with it and ran up to him, screaming "I CAN FUCKING SEE YOU FOLLOWING ME, NEVER COME NEAR ME AGAIN OR I WILL CALL THE POLICE." That is how blunt you need to be in order to deal with this kind of person.
Now that threats have entered into the picture, you may have moved beyond the point where bluntness alone will work. Tell him you think he's being a creepy stalker guy and you never want to talk to him again, log the threatening IMs, block his phone number, block his IM, report the harassment to the police.
You should have said, "I don't think you'd like his either." !!!
I kid. Grow a backbone, Austie. Don't take that shit.
Fiz: I will definitely make it clear asap.
Mudd: Ugh I don't save chatlogs but this is a great idea, I will if there is a next time!
Petite: It's true, I should have been bolder. Also, I'm very hesitant about legal action. I've never dealt with that level of seriousness before so it's quite nervewracking. I'll need to think about it.
VonPoon: Yes Yes Yes!! It's taken me WAY too long to acknowledge this issue. Fuck.
McD : I hope we will be as lucky.
OP - Contact the police ASAP.
Let them decide what to do about the threats. It's their job. Meanwhile don't go near him, don't talk to him, don't have any contact at all, none, nothing. And tell your friends and family to never give any info out about you to him because he's DANGEROUS. If he calls 50 times and you pick up on the last one to tell him off, he just learned he has to call you 51 times to get a reaction.
Sorry this happened, it's not your fault he's psycho and you didn't do anything to cause this.
This is disgustingly wrong. This isn't miscommunication, this is a crime. Not. her. fault.
uh huh... he made a veiled threat against a person he doesn't know and doesn't even have a name or face for. He never threatened the OP, and from what she has said there have been no signs of violence aside from these veiled NON-DIRECT threats.
God, we've become a nation of passive-aggressives. If the OP doesn't tell him to fucking piss off at some point in their interaction, wtf are the cops supposed to do?
Half the problem with stalkers is that they aren't confronted until they've gone off the deep-end.
Edit: And no one said the OP is at fault... she is most definately NOT responsible for this guys behavior. It sucks to be in this situation. But frankly, people with poor social skills like the stalker need a firm no. Not a flirty smile and a maybe. There is an entire subset of people out there for whom signals are completely meaningless.
No, sorry, you're the one that's wrong.
Part of the reason it got this far in the first place is because she didn't say a firm, strong, NO and was not upfront about not wanting to talk to him anymore... and he took it to mean he had a shot with her.
I know many guys like this who are NOT psycho, they have incredibly low self-esteem and they assume that since she didn't say "NO," she technically means yes or, worse, that he has a chance to GET her to say yes. This is how they become stalkers. Such guys are a dime a half-dozen.
Could he be dangerous? Absolutely. She should not go anywhere alone, particularly places he knows she goes. Carry mace. Bring the boyfriend with her.
Yes, contact the police, but only to let them know something is up and maybe they can give some advice as to what to do next.
Your advice is sound in that it errs on the side of caution, but dismissing her from responsibility in this case only means it might repeat itself in the future the next time someone decides to sidle up to her to get her attention, and that doesn't help anyone at all.
It's not her FAULT, no. But she could have done much to stop it much, much earlier on, too.
She needs to confront him before contacting the police. I think they would take it more seriously if she has made an attempt and he failed to comply. Like Sentry said, without a violent history and empty threats to her boyfriend whom he doesn't even know the name and face of, the complaint won't go far.
She didn't cause it but I doubt it would have gotten this far if she had done something sooner. Austie knows this.
we have to take stalker boy at his word here and his word is fucked up threats. That's how it is. If he didn't want to be treated like a fucked up psycho, he shouldn't act like a fucked up psycho.
"he won't like my gun"? "look at his insides"? Those are your veiled non direct threats? See, in the real world those are illegal. You have to have some hangup here to not see this. Well whatever, have fun in crazy-town.
And if the threats to kill her boyfriend were made anonymously what then? You think she'd need to track the stalker down and tell him off before calling teh cops? Jesus. the stupid, it burns.
This isn't hard - re-fucking-gardless of whatever happened before, the guy is now threating violence. Call the cops. They'll tell him to knock it off and you'll have a police record of it so if he doesn't get sane quick, getting a restraining order will be easier.
Actually, those are not illegal. He hasn't made any specific threats against anyone. Like, "hey, I'm going to kill your boyfriend."
Is he likely fucked in the head? Perhaps. But until the OP tells him to fuck off, what do you expect to happen?
OP: This guy won't leave me alone!
Police: have you told him to leave you alone?
OP: ...
Good lord quit talking without information. You are wrong and giving bad advice.
call.the.cops.
From a real live law book!
YOU are not giving bad advice, she should inform the cops if only to start a trail. But your advice is tinged with idiocy.
He just needs to be told to leave her alone, instead of having the cops instantly called on him.
I mean, if a person is unable to figure out the shit he's doing is stalkerish/creepy, he sure as hell won't realize that she isn't into him.
Jon, you're being pretty drastic.
Basically, she can go to the police either to seek action or to at least inform them of the situation and get advice.
In addition, she can either tell the guy, outright and straight-up, that she no longer has any interest in communicating with him, or she can simply ignore him and assume he gets the message.
Sure some of the advice is better than others, but regardless, it's her move.
I'm going pre-law. Just to end this discussion and let the OP get on her way, though the law "speaks plainly," as Sentry's quotes would say, cases of precedent point to the idea that courts tend to side on what PirateJon deems as correct. In court, if one feared for the welfare harm of themselves or others, it is usually admissible for immediate court order restraint. Getting the court to have someone go under psychiatric care, on the other hand, is much, much harder.
I'm willing to wager, based on experience in dealing with people like this, that her stalker probably says this shit to her because he thinks she might think it's sweet. She might find his jealousy endearing, or she might respect him for his willingness to "fight" for her.
And, as Spectre said, there are some girls out there who just MIGHT feel that way about that sort of thing.
Austera is not one of those girls, and she is going to need to say so. On top of that, she is put in a tricky position to tell him to leave her alone while ensuring that the stalker doesn't think the boyfriend is influencing her decision.
This is why she should've put a stop to this and spoken up ages ago, but that's water under the bridge. She has to delicately and eloquently turn this guy down, tell him firmly that she is not interested and to leave her alone, and also find a way to make it clear that her feelings on the matter are her OWN, not coming from that of her boyfriend.
If she still feels fearful after that, then she can certainly file a report with the police and let them know what is going on.
But shit at the end of the day she knows the situation better than any of us do, so it's her call to make.
I believe that Mr. Stalker thinks he is being romantic, not that she might think he is, or something.
It would be worse if you guys are right and he's not actually a threat. Thats down right evil.
I totally agree with you. And it sucks for the OP. But the fact does remain, there are guys out there who have such little socialization that they honestly have no clue how inappropriate their behavior is.
It's usually both. He thinks what he is doing is romantic and he believes she thinks so, too.
This will be my last word on the subject, but I don't think you quite get what being socially inept means, Jon.
Some dudes, for whatever reason, don't get social norms. They can't grasp that joking about killing someone's boyfriend could be considered a real threat. Hell, the guy could think that she likes him because she hasn't told him otherwise.
It's true that this guy could be batshit insane, but he could jsut as easily be a lonely dude who thinks he's smooth.
I don't know where you're getting all this "pure evil" stuff from.
If he's not a threat because he's doing this to coerce her into dating him that's sociopathic, not awkward. He should be prosecuted so he doesn't get to prey on another girl who may not be as strong as OP is.
If he's not lying, then he is a threat. And should be prosecuted to protect the OP and so he can get help. But then not evil, just sick in the head.
The fact that you don't see a reason for anyone to care how a guy got to be this way is a little scary, particularly given your no-nonsense stance on his actions.
Calling for blood when you (all of us, really) don't have a modicum of understanding as to what is really going on (nor would we expect Austera to explain it all to us in grueling detail) only invalidates a lot of what you were saying before.
You didn't give BAD advice, but I'll be damned if I don't disagree with where it's coming from.
I think the point is not empathizing with the socially inept, but rather with the girl. While he may be suffering from a weak case of the "lonelies," the fact remains that she feels threatened. Doesn't matter if she had some "part" to play in it (by not confronting him, which is cutting close), she now feels threatened. Why not call for a restraining order? I think the risk in having her confront someone she is afraid of, simply because it may be "more understanding," far outweighs the risk of "hurting his feelings" because he doesn't understand social norms and slapping a restraining order on him. While she should have been blunt with him right from the start, she isn't responsible for his mental state.