You are being stalked

Last week I watched a movie about a young waitress who finds a handbag on the subway and decides to return it to its owner.

The bag had a card with a name and an address which leads her to an eccentric French widow who lives alone. The two women become friends. The young woman, who has recently lost her mother, starts visiting the widow in her house and baking with her. One day, while looking for flour she discovers many handbags similar to the one she found on the subway each with the same card and address.

She becomes suspicious of the widow and stops visiting or returning her call which made the widow very angry. She starts stalking the waitress at the restaurant where the young woman works and demands an explanation then keeps standing in the restaurant outside for hours. Later, she kidnaps the young woman and ties her up in a room and forces her to play the piano with her and pretend to be her daughter.

Stalking is a pattern of unwanted contact or behavior that leads someone to feel upset, anxious, or scared for his or her safety. The behavior is consistent and intentional as opposed to one or two isolated incidents and it persists after the individual has asked the stalker to stop contacting them.

Stalking can sometimes escalate to a physical attack, sexual assault, or even murder. Stalking is a common theme that has been frequently featured in psychological thrillers. But tales of relentless pursuit of romantic interest dates back to 4,000 years ago with the story of Gilgamesh. Since then, psychologists have been trying to understand and deal with someone who engages in such obsessive and unwanted pursuits.

Defining stalking has proved to be a challenge. In a recent paper, psychologists explained that there exist “gray areas” where accepted courtship practices and stalking overlap. Some cultures see stalking as a form of “romantic persistence” that is often celebrated, admired, or viewed sympathetically.

A study from the UAS published in the year 2020 about men cyberstalking women reported evidence that among the study group, there was a culture of normalising, minimizing, and romanticising stalking.

'Some people perceived stalking as a form of harmless flattering. This perception may arise when people fail to see that certain behaviors that may be acceptable or even welcome to a person within a relationship like sending them multiple gifts or calling their family members without permission.

It can be seen as inappropriate or even criminal when the pursuer is no longer in a relationship with that person or never was.

With advances in technology stalking through social media can be practiced sometimes by average people with no criminal history or intentions, I remember a young woman who got divorced but continued to follow her ex-husband on Instagram using fake accounts. She described feeling angry that he moved on with his life while she had not. While realising she was stalking him, she felt it was her way of coping with the divorce. In this case, this behavior was impacting her more than the victim. Being able to recognise red flags that suggest stalking is the first step to preventing it.