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Stalking and the internet..... (PICS)

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08:31 / 14.04.04

I have a "hypothetical" situation here.

Let's say I had a "relationship" with a woman in college in the mid 90's. This relationship's hallmark was bad timing; when she was ready, I wasn't, and vice versa.

Well, I was ready to be with this woman (hereafter referred to as Jennifer) in my last year of college, but I was involved intimately with a girl (whom I'll call Christina). Desperately wanting to be with Jennifer, I offered my relationship with Christina as a sacrifice. Jennifer took the proverbial high ground, and refused.

My fascination with Jennifer has not ceased to this day. I still believe she truly wants to be with me, despite the fact that I am married (not to Christina).

I have a personal website which I hope will encourage Jennifer to contact me. Also, in the past, I have not been able to find information (address, phone number, etc.) for Jennifer...but more recently, I have succeeded. I have taken this as some sort of sign that she wishes to be found by me, as I put information on the net in order to be found by her. I've also posted roughly four years' worth of email correspondence between us on my site.

Am I insane? Is this some sort of game she's playing with me? If she contacts me with my worst-case scenario (i.e., telling me to fuck off), what should I do?

Please help; I'm desperately hoping to remove my mask and be with the one whom I desire most in life.

08:38 / 14.04.04

Eh.. What about your marriage? No good?

08:40 / 14.04.04

The marriage is alright...but to be perfectly honest, I'd leave my wife in a heartbeat to be with Jennifer. Even if I thought I merely had a chance.

08:49 / 14.04.04

Can we see the website?

09:06 / 14.04.04

"Hypothetically" - I'd say you were a bit scary and you should leave the poor girl alone. Why are you so obsessed with her?

Just cos you've posted your information for her to find you DOES NOT mean that her posting similar stuff is for *you*.

Man, why have you posted four years worth of email from her on your site? Are you mad? What does this hope to acheive?

Listen - if Jennifer wouldn't see you cos of Cristina in your third year of college (COLLEGE!) then what makes you think her moral highground will be any less with your marriage!

I really don't know what you're after here? Some sort of approval for being a bit scary, or encouragement to contact an old friend for a drink?

Seriously though bud, I don't think that this is some sort of game she's playing with you. Seriously.

09:15 / 14.04.04

Posting information about yourself on the web that can easily be found seems like a good plan, since then if she wants to contact you, she can. Posting emails from her on your website isn't so good, since if she sees those, she probably won't be too impressed. Best to delete those.

I think you should leave it up to her whether she wants to contact you or not. Your information is out there, and if she is interested, then she will find it, and contact you. Instead of obsessing about her, maybe you could work on improving the layout of your website, or try to make it easier to find on Google, etc?

09:44 / 14.04.04

What Jub said.

My fascination with Jennifer has not ceased to this day. I still believe she truly wants to be with me.

I really hope this is "hypothetical" - What evidence do you have for this belief? Especially as she wouldn't go out with you eight or so years ago. Surely, that's some pretty good "evidence" that things weren't meant to be, or she wasn't interested. Or is this just a case of as you say, fascination, and "grass is always greener" syndrome"? She may have changed completely in that time, and that's assuming you were ever suitable in the first place.

"Hypothetically", I'd say it was the best part of a decade ago, mate. Get over it. If your're unhappy in your marriage, look for love closer to home.

Not been able to give up on a fixation with one particular person seems to be a really common thing when we start talking about rrrrrealtionships. Perhaps someone should start a thread about it.

09:48 / 14.04.04

Having said all that, lots of people do use things like Friends Reunited etc to get back in touch, and we can't deny there must be an element of unfulfilled lust motivating this. If you've found her you could drop her an email - however, if an ex or potential ex (you know what I mean) or mine dropped me a line out the blue and said I've been scouring the net for you for the best part of ten years and I think we were always meant to be together, I'd run for the fucking hills, I think. She might not have spared you a thought since she last clapped eyes on you.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:04 / 14.04.04

Ex

11:21 / 14.04.04

Is this some sort of game she's playing with me?

Other posters that come before me are right, but I come with the big slappy hand.

You are attributing waaaay too much you-related motive to the lady in question. You can (frixample) find my email address online through a name search. That's because of my work. Not because I want people I'm playing evil mindgames with someone I declined to go out with in 1995. On the other hand, a call from you might show her that sticking your phone number up online is inadvisable.

If she contacts me with my worst-case scenario (i.e., telling me to fuck off), what should I do?

A decade of silence is not enough? I think your worst-case-scenario-by-date came and went several years ago.

More important might be to work out why you're hanging on to this. I get regular emails from exes and they all want validation or familiarity or a sense that they can rewrite portions of their past and be another person. It's never about me and how wonderful I am (although I am, of course, a rare bird). It is, indubitably, a them thing.
Which makes me wonder why you think this is about her - going as far as to attribute strong reciprocal feelings to her and suggesting she might contact you - when it's about you. So - what's up with you at the moment?

You could call her, but as the parallel Keith thread shows, if you're in this mood, the decisive act/response/word that you think will dislodge or bury your obsession just becomes just another part of the narrative, an intriguing obstacle to work round ("Yes, she slammed the phone down on me, but that was because she was too scared to admit her true feelings...") Get rid of your obsession now, and you'll never have to deal with calling her and being utterly crushed. Less painful.

This may all sound very harsh. I'm usually a softly-spoken lovely, dispensing kittens from my basket of ahhhhh. But -you've posted private correspondence on a public website? You attribute obsessive, manipulative motivations to someone you're obsessed with?
I'm holding your passport to self-awaria. I'll leave the others to stamp all over it...

11:49 / 14.04.04

Jesus Christ, people. It's a fucking put on.

That or we've got a nutball that revels in cliche on our hands.

12:09 / 14.04.04

Go for it, morphine. You only live once.

12:31 / 14.04.04

I dunno. There might be something to what he says. Kirsty Wark flirts with me through the TV. The little minx.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:40 / 14.04.04

Just for a moment, I'm setting aside the "this is a joke" angle, attractive and plausible though it is...

...um, does your wife have net access? Cos then, "hypothetically", she could find this stuff, ditch you, this other woman could do the (let's face it) predictable thing and carry on with her life as normal, and then you're fucked. And not in a sweaty, squishy way.

And, if it's not a joke, do you mind if I lift some details of your life for a psychological horror story I'm working on?

Ex

12:43 / 14.04.04

Jesus Christ, people. It's a fucking put on.

But dude - the optimism tempered by despair! The psychic projection! The appeals for help in an "I'm just an ordinary guy" style while having already way overstepped the boundaries of Not Alright - either we have a talented writer with a comic creation of quite some merit, a la Marion and Jeff.

Or an obsessed ex.

And see! I have a stack of ex-emails to dump on the latter side of the scales.

Either way, the Morphine suit will post next saying "I'm not invented - or joking - I only wish I was..."

And Kirsty Walk tells me she misses you, Smoothly. Why don't you talk to her any more? Hey? She needs you.

12:46 / 14.04.04

I'm sorry, this is terribly insensitive of me if morphine is being deadly sincere, but this thread has been a really wonderful laugh on a rainy Wednesday morning. Perhaps especially this: "Yes, she slammed the phone down on me, but that was because she was too scared to admit her true feelings..."

Thanks Ex, and everyone else, I needed that.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:50 / 14.04.04

Bit late, this, but a delayed entrant:

You see Billy from Six Feet Under? He’s really worried about you, Morphine. He thinks you’re behaving oddly.

Well, perhaps the fact that she has put her contact information on the web is not a sign that she has found your website, thought “Oh, how cute, he has violated my privacy completely by posting up four years of email on the Internet, I must show him that I am ready to get back together with him by making my details available.”

Perhaps she has put her details on the Internet precisely because she isn’t aware that you have done that.

God is not bringing you together. God does not give a shit about your relationship. There is arguably a case for people looking each other up on Friends Reunited and seeing if the old flame/hormonal surge is still working, but not when one party has in the intervening DECADE made the other party into the breasty Christ who will solve all his problems with her return. And got married.

To go a little more Miriam Stoppard – perhaps you are so nostalgic about Jennifer because you feel that your marriage is not giving you what you want from a relationship. You should possibly think about the relationship, seek counselling, break up, whatever. What you should not do is describe your marriage as “all right”, while avowing that you would dumpy our wife in a second at the call of somebody who has not bothered to google your name in the last ten years, either through indifference or a desire to put this behind her.

Soo… I’d be all up for dropping her a “hey! Found you on the Internet! Isn’t that weird. How are you?” email, if a) you were not married, b) you were not obsessed with her and c) you were not planning to parachute her into a maelstrom of unwanted and unwelcome emotional revenance. As it is, although this missive may well find you outside her house with a pair of pants on your head, I’d take down the website, get a grip, sort out your relationship, et your head straight and then maybe, maybe, you will be well-adjusted enough either to contact her or to realise that you no longer wish to contact her.

12:59 / 14.04.04

Ah Haus, you really do have a lovely turn of phrase - "the breasty Christ" almost makes me wish I'd been brought up Catholic so it could confuse, allure and upset me.

15:25 / 14.04.04

The correct answer is: none of the above.

Long story short, I'm helping a friend of mine, who happens to be the stalkee in question. The stalker happens to be a fairly regular poster around here.

I appreciate the completely objective opinions which paint a nutty picture of this guy. Hopefully he'll read it, and break open the phone book, fingers flying to find Counseling or Psychologist listings.

Thanks again.

15:26 / 14.04.04

Kirsty Wark flirts with me through the TV. The little minx.

you too? damn.. thought i was in with a shout there..

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:35 / 14.04.04

Hmmm.. I think this thread has gone from a giggle to a sinister minor chord...

Our Lady Has Left the Building

15:46 / 14.04.04

I'm almost ready to declare 'Welshness' on this thread. Why say this was a hypothetical situation in the first post? Why maintain that it was about you until challenged, then suddenly go "oh, it's not me, it's my friend who, guess what, could be any one of you!"?

16:01 / 14.04.04

Ex

16:05 / 14.04.04

Y'see, I think it's fine to post requests for the board to come jump on your head, but less worthy to ask they come jump on the heads of others...

Long story short, I'm helping a friend of mine, who happens to be the stalkee in question.

Then unless the situation has advanced beyond the point described, or you're psychic, or really devious, then you can't possibly have all the information as given.
Which renders the advice of only moderate value.

Still, at least the enormous slappy hand still applies.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

16:08 / 14.04.04

Best. Thread. Ever.

Sinister minor chord? That there's the Devil's Interval, and no mistake. With a sus13 and major second thrown in to, you know, crank up the dissonance.

Tryphena Absent

16:09 / 14.04.04

To put it simply, troll or not, this sentence tells me ( I'd leave my wife in a heartbeat to be with Jennifer) that you're a complete cunt.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:15 / 14.04.04

There's only one thing to do. Take a blood sample from each one of us and then expose it to fire.

This is pretty dubious, isn't it? I mean, how do we proceed? I'm not untempted to move that the thread be locked or possibly deleted, on the grounds that right now it is potentially inflammatory and to illuminate a general principle that you shouldn't join a bulletin board just to start a fight with a member, no matter how batshit you may believe that member to be.

Oh God, it's Tom, isn't it? Or Ganesh...

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

16:15 / 14.04.04

Yes, Anna, but what do you really think?

This demure beating about the bush nonsense has got to stop!

16:18 / 14.04.04

okay!
i admit it!

'jennifer' is haus, and 'christina' is flux.

just stop tormenting me, morphine!

16:19 / 14.04.04

Morph, if you know who the stalker is, I find it strange that you're 'helping' your friend by posting here about it. If it's as serious as you make out, then take it to the police. Of course, that would be pointless now that you've gone and told this mysterious mystery mysteron stalker that you know who ze is (cue dramatic chord).

16:44 / 14.04.04

dun dun DUUUUH!

16:54 / 14.04.04

Ah yes, that would be the one I was looking for. Thank-you fridgemagnet.

17:37 / 14.04.04

Jennifer?

Christina?

17:40 / 14.04.04

The wife?

18:30 / 14.04.04

The late Mark Sandman, of morphine?

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