Stalking? Yes -- NO -- wait - what?

Great Debates
1

Do you remember saddle shoes, poodle skirts, pony tails and pink shoe laces?

Remember all of those old movies where the hero determinedly persues the love of his life through thick and thin even though she first rejects him? Remember the old Jerry Lewis movies where he pulled all sorts of things to get the apple of his eye to fall for him? Remember when the girl would get mad at the dream boat and give him the cold shoulder and he would send her flowers, and gifts and love letters and candy and call her at all hours of the night and even sneak up to her window in her folks home to wake her up with a little gravel and have a pleading talk with her?

Remember how the guy would park across from her house and mournfully stare at her window for most of the night?

Remember how, in the end, they won their loves back, how the girls just loved being chased after, making him sweat a bit or prove that he really loved them?

Remember that aspect of romance once so popular?

So, when did it become stalking? A guy can get his butt in trouble if he does any of that now.

I once broke up with a girl and drove by her house, called her up to try to talk to her and she coldly informed me that she was going to have me arrested for stalking. So, not liking the idea of jail, I stopped. Some time later, when I bumped into her, we talked, and she said she had been waiting for me to romantically bang on her window one night or come charging up to her door to say I loved her – and, as I reeled in my jaw from where it hit the table – I pointed out to her that she had threatened to have me arrested. Her reply was that she didn’t mean it. She said she had been so disappointed that I had not ‘gone after her.’

I was glad I’d found someone else.

So, have we gone to far with stalking laws when an enamored boyfriend can’t try to woo his lady back?

2

Stalking laws exist for a purpose.

Your ex-girlfriend was emotionally unstable. You should be thankful that the existing laws convinced you to back off after her threat. The alternative would very likely have been worse.

3

Amen to that!

4

That is the problem with some women: they confuse being hard-to-get with being Mission: Impossible.

5

Now if you banged on her window with a dead kitten on a string or charged up to her door while still driving the car, THAT would be stalking.

I think the degree of woo that you pitch and the methods you go about it have a great deal to do with it. Of course, she threaten to call the cops on me, I’m gone too. If your woo consists of non-threatening and non-intruisive tactics, then it is ok.

I think men got the benefit of the doubt historically in these types of situations, so to counter-act that, stalking laws were established, and with good reason. But it’s women like the one who you got mixed up with who create the problems by threatening to do that sort of thing.

6

I got tossed in the can once, for an unrelated incident involving a lot of drink and topless dancers, just for a few hours. That was quite long enough, thanks. I chose not to take any chances. Anyone who likes going back to jail, repeatedly, is nuts.

An acquaintance of mine was in a similar situation, but he had it worse. After she threatened to have him arrested for stalking - he’d sit outside her house and play love songs for her on his stereo, which I figure irritated the neighbors even more than the girl, she would go past his beach business - he sells burgers, dogs, cold drinks and chips from a small stand - in the skimpiest bikini she could find just, I found out, to let him see what he was missing. (He was missing one helluva package!!) When he started calling her, thinking that was a come on, he got a warning from the cops and a cool shoulder from her.

He finally learned to ignore her and she stopped parading around his stand in two Band-Aids and a postage stamp.

7

If he’s handsome, it’s romance.

If he’s weird-looking, it’s stalking.

8

He’s gotta be James Dean handsome and Cyranno De’Bergerac (sp?)romantically or its stalking, heh.

9

Amen to that!

10

One of my favorite quotes:

“So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.”
-Gregory Maguire, in Wicked

11

IIRC, there is a poem (sorry, I’ve forgotten the author) in which a lady, to demonstrate to the world her swain’s love for her, tosses her glove into a midst of a armed brawl. Her swain retrieves it…and slaps her across the face with it. Francis I of France (I have no idea how he gets into the poem) says approvingly:

So, I basically agree with Spiritus Mundi. If the ex-girlfriend asks, “How come you didn’t brave the risk of arrest to woo me?”, the correct, if impolite, answer is, “Because I’ve been told never to get involved with anyone crazier than I am”.

12

‘Investigative Reports’ on A&E did a great show on stalkers. They had interviews with several stalkers while they were in custody. It was fascinating to hear the self delusion these guys had.

‘It’s just a big misunderstanding. We’re very much in love. If I could just talk to her, I know we could work this out. I could make her understand that we were meant for each other’. This while the man is handcuffs for violating a restraining order.

The high point of the show was a man who stalked a woman for SEVENTEEN YEARS!!! They had been part of a teenage church group project, and the woman never even gave the guy the time of day. Then she gets letters, phone calls and visits that are all subtley threatening. She changes towns, changes her name, moves across the country. At one point, she thinks it’s over. She hasn’t seen him for a year. Then she finds out he’s been living across the street from her and watching her for 6 months.

These guys are frickin’ scary!

13

well, in my state, MI, to be convicted of stalking, you must actually make a threat to harm. any threat like that isn’t romance, it’s sick.

For the rest of it, the “pursuit” aspect, that’s what TRO’s are for. My understanding is that if some one is contacting me, and I don’t wish them to, and they have no overiding legal reason to get in touch with me, I can ask for and probably recieve a restraining order, forbidding them from coming onto/near my property, place of work, calling, writing etc. This comes under harassment. (they wouldn’t issue a TRO for some one contacting you to collect a bad debt). Then you’d be arrested for violation of a TRO, not stalking.

So, while the g/f may have threatened you with arrest, it’s not likely that you would have been arrested. Had she called the cops, they may have stopped by and talked to you suggesting that you leave her alone.

As others have pointed out, be grateful you escaped a wacko. Most folks when they say “leave me alone” actually mean it.

14

FarTreker wrote:

“Poodle skirts”? Whoo boy, is PETA ever gonna have a field day with that one.

I have a more important question: Were those old movies an accurate portrayal of romantic pursuit, or would a guy who tried those tricks back in the days when the movie was made have been viewed as a stalker also?

15

Here in my state the legislature passed a law against stalking to protect abortion providers (doctors and such) against harassment.

The first people convicted under the statute were pro-choicers - for stalking members of Operation Rescue.

16

You expect there to be some exaggeration in movies, but most are built on bases of the current morals, or rather, morals of the time. Like you see those old funny movies (B&W) where the guy has a wife bigger than he is who likes to swing a mean rolling pin and strongly resembles a drill sergeant. They were not far off, if you check into records and pictures of those times. A lot of those women were strong from doing the major amount of daily house work they had to do, most were not pretty by our standards and looked like they’d just as soon punch you out than argue with you.

I recall guys mooning over breakups and calling the girl time and time again, driving by her house, leaving little gifts at her door or with her folks, and sitting for hours watching her window from across the street. These days, one can be arrested for stalking for doing something like that.

I once, being real shy, ‘secretly’ started wooing a lady from afar with unsigned flowers, thoughtful cards and sweet letters. (It didn’t work. She went after a bouncer like steel attracted to a magnet.) Today, she could file a complaint against me for stalking or one that she was being stalked by a person unknown.

I understand the real reason for the laws, but I figure that they’re being abused far too often.

Like, a while back, when feeling a bit low, I drove to the beach, like I used to many years ago, in the night, and went for a stroll along the sands below the high tide line. Well, there’s a lot of hotels, motels and houses now where there used to be sweeps of tropical style empty beach. The high tide line is owned by the government. Anything above it, technically, is owned by developers. I was strolling along, staying well away from any hotels and by the time I got back to the undeveloped area where my car was, the police were there. It seems that by walking along the beach, at night and being male, I was under suspicion of desiring to potentially commit a crime and it was strongly suggested that I move along. If I wished to stroll along the beach, there was one at the end of the county, undeveloped, (but potentially infested with muggers,) where I could walk.

Years back, I might have been checked, but then left alone.

17

I’m too young to answer that question, but I think it is worth noting that more modern movies still feature the sort of “romantic pursuit” that would look a heck of a lot like stalking in the real world. Sure, John Cusack’s boombox serenade in “Say Anything” is sweet in a movie, but if anyone showed up outside my window at night blasting music at me I’d probably call the cops. Movies do not and never have offered an especially accurate portrayl of real life.

18

It’s even worse at work; it’s not only stalking, it’s “sexual harassment”.

The rule is that if you ask someone out, and they don’t say yes, you are forbidden from asking them again. Ever. So, if I ask someone on a simple lunch date, and they don’t leap into my arms by the final syllable, I shalt not speak to them again, unless it is work-related, and probably not even then.

No means no. Yes means no. Maybe means no. The hell with it.

19

> Here in my state the legislature passed a law against stalking to protect abortion providers (doctors and such) against harassment.

Yeah, but how many of us want to date abortion doctors?

I think if the stalking laws had been in place a few decades ago, a lot of us wouldn’t be here, because our parents wouldn’t have gotten together.

20

I’m not joking here, but there was a time when no meant yes – at least ‘good’ girls had to protest a bit to protect their reputations. Though their no was not an emphatically ‘get-your-dirty-f*****g-hands-off-me’ type of no.

Somehow, guys were supposed to know the difference. It could be confusing and end with a real ticked off girl with a rumpled dress and a guy wondering why he has a red hand print on his face and all he got was a feel.