My Internet Stalker

A Love Story

We'll call him Tom, since that was his name.  I met him in a chat room on yahoo.  He was quiet for a chat room but private messaged me and we got to talking about ourselves. 

Little did I know, he was basically following me all over the Internet. 

We talked a lot online.  Just innocent chat from my end.  I guess I was naive. 

It meant nothing to me other than chit chat. 

He fell in love with the idea of me.

We talked about work and family and pets and mostly, about work.  I wasn't real happy with my job at the time.

One Saturday, when I was working, which I used to have to do an awful lot, he called me at work.  I was really surprised as I had never told him exactly where I worked, just what business I worked in.

He had tracked me down from an IP address I had posted from at work.

I didn't know that at the time.

He lived near Chicago and had driven here, 6 hours away, for the week-end for the sole purpose of meeting me.

Okay, so the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I had not invited him.  I had not shown any sort of romantic interest in him.  I may have made a comment like, If you are in the area, give me a call.  Without meaning it sincerely or giving him any sort of phone number.

Imagine my surprise when he called me at work and told me he had just checked into a hotel right next to where I worked.

I was a bit stunned and agreed to meet him for a drink figuring, Okay, I'll say hello and blow his ass right off without making him mad because this is fucking scary.

I also made arrangements with a large male co-worker to be posted a few seats down from me at the bar.

This turned out to be a wise choice as Tom after about 10 minutes of telling me how he was in love with me and was going to move here started physically touching me  in ways that can only be described as inappropriate.

My large co-worker and the bartender both intervened.  I was yelping in my most delicate ladylike manner, "GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF ME YOU FUCKING ASSWIPE!"

The cops, when they arrived, were just happy no punches had been thrown. 

Ah, to be in love again.

Comments

[Stacy]

Oh my GOD! I would FREAK out! Of course, I own several large automatic weapons and my husband is a former Green Beret, so anybody out there who's reading this should be ready...

[Psycho Kitty]

Hmm, and I was just sitting here second-guessing my impending purchase of a home security system. No more!

[Richard Ames]

I suppose it's because I'm male that I find Internet stalkers interesting rather than frightening — interesting in the same manner as one might study tadpoles or geese, and I don’t mean this to be disrespectful of the stalkers. I’ve never had an unannounced 6-hour trip made in my favor, but I’ve had other circumstances which were similarly surprising. Again, because I’m male I imagine I could in those instances afford to be more forgiving of the surprise and I’ve tried to treat the occasion like a field study in human nature. Obviously, people are not being treated very well in real life when they interpret garden-variety kindness and interesting chat on the web as a sign of deep affection or magical personal connection. These are not isolated occurrences in the Land of Online and they are, I suspect, symptoms of how utterly disconnected an enormous block of folks feel in their own real lives. If we treated people in real life a bit better, we’d have a lot less problems online I imagine. Not that this has to be my problem, but I truly feel empathy for the so-called “stalker” and I’ve tried not to add to their problem by being an ass about it. Appropriately handled they’ll eventually get their equilibrium back and return to their apparently chilly personal life.