Have You Ever Had a Stalker?

I have a guy who is obsessed with me to the point that it's weirding me the fuck out.

He's not a fan. He's an anti-fan. What he needs to do is get off the Internet and get into therapy, but all he can do, it seems, is think about me, comb through my back catalogue and social media for sins, and write shit about me. At first I was like, Okay, whatever, just keep living my life, the guy is just bored and aggrieved for whatever reason(s), but now it's reaching the point where I think he's seriously broken somehow and it worries me, for him and his family, and for me. He's started making threats about my livelihood, and I think he's a fairly gentle nudge away from showing up at my house. (This thread might do it, for all I know.) I have no idea what I'm supposed to do other than wait and hope he gets better or interested in something or somebody else—I haven't engaged with him in a long time, and now I regret that I ever I did—but I don't see that happening.

This might be hard to talk about without outing—AND NO OUTING—but have any of you ever had a stalker? What happened? What did you do about it? How did the story end?

 

Would you say your stalker is an LOL type or a career failure who is unmoored?

 

My advice is if you have a legitimate fear to make local authorities aware of it.
This is a meaner, more dangerous world and kookery is not to be taken lightly.
Many of the urchins that have created problems in our society raised flags long before their eventual deeds.
Cyberstalking is a crime.

 

I would say he's deeply unhappy about some things either past or present, and he sees in me something unfair about life, maybe? At the same time, he has this bizarre idea that we'd be friends in real life, which has a certain SWF quality to it. I don't really know. I'm definitely guilty of poking at him previously, but he nurses things from, like, a decade ago. Just the wrong kind of personality to have toyed with, but you don't really know that until after.

I suspect you think it's funny, just a writer and his weird reader, but if you look at the situation objectively, it's really fucking strange.

 

Funny? Perhaps ... but I also love the human condition, and human behavior, and the theater of it all. And, with that, him (is him a pronoun now? Lol) coming after you is probably the last thing in the world you need to worry about. He's really not that unmoored from reality. He's got a strong wOBA.

 

Have you met this guy in real life? Spoken to him ever? Just wondering. That’s weird though man. I had certain people who would email me rude comments about things I’d written or consistently leave snide remarks in the comments section, and more than once I told them to fuck off. It never rose to a level where I felt threatened though. I’d definitely contact authorities. They might in turn contact him and tell him to cool it, which might be all he needs.

 

ignore him

 

Wow.

If you are concerned , you need to contact local authorities.

And it”s no one from here, right?

Sorry about the situation, man.

 

Challenge him to a boxing match.

 

I think that's Doyel's with 2 gg's shtick.

 

Aren't you afraid your stalker will read this thread?

 

I don't feel threatened, exactly. Weirded out. Like it was fun for a while and now it's tipped into some dark place.

We have never met, and we have never spoken. I do sometimes wonder whether there was some weird Herb Stempel/Charles Van Doren moment where I snubbed him accidentally or something. His obsession does seem that pathological. I am not alone in thinking so.