I’ve got a stalker. I’m 34 (yes, I am! for another month), married and not nearly as attractive as I was years ago, yet now I’ve got a stalker. He found me somehow, and has been instant messaging me and has now found my MySpace account (yes, I have a myspace and yes, I’m 34!) and has begun to send me messages there. I am very particular about who I will ‘friend’ in myspace. I will not ‘friend’ people I don’t know, and mostly my ‘friends’ are my first cousins and my brothers. It’s not a very exciting MySpace but, it turns out that MySpace is really everyone’s space and that the internet is really quite a scary place.
So this guy is a Pashtoon, which I guess to him it means that he and I are the same person, we share the same background and are living the same lives. I am pretty sure he is a fundamentalist. His main interest is whether I’m married to a white guy, an American, a kafir, and his im’s and messages on myspace run along those same lines. I’ve told him in a variety of ways that I’m not interested in communicating with him, and actually blocked him from instant messaging me. Yet, he found me on MySpace, he knows my name and where I live and what I do.
I have to admit to being afraid. When I told him to stop messaging me or contacting me in any manner, he sent me another message, this one quite disturbing. I am actually contemplating going to the authorities, since I don’t know what a person like this might do. He is clearly a religious zealot, and I’m pretty sure that my lifestyle has caused him a great deal of angst. I guess I’m looking to my friends in cyberspace to get some suggestions on what to do. I know who this person is, I know where they live, but now I just need to know if I should let it go or if I should be proactive. My gut is telling me to report it to someone, because when I blocked him on the im, he found me anyway! This tells me this guy has a problem, and probably won’t stop on his own.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Report it. Report it to Myspace (they may be able to block him for a while). Call the police and see what they can do. Do something! Even if no action can be taken against him right now (and that’s at least possible, if not probable), you’ll be taking control of the situation.
Yes, do something. Trust yourself in this situation; it sounds scary to me, too.
Hmmm…Even I didn’t think to look for your MySpace page, and you know how I get with these things…
JACA – Justification, Alternatives, Consequences, Ability.
Does your stalker have justification (in his mind) for doing something to harm you? You haven’t been real specific, but it sounds like this is a Yes.
Does your stalker have alternatives to harming you? That depends what he’s trying to do, which I can’t guess from your description.
Is he concerned about the consequences of acting against you? I know you know who he is, but did he tell you or did you find out somehow? Anonymous threats are from people who are afraid of the consequences. If he identified himself, he’s not so afraid.
Does he actually have the ability to hurt you? Usually this means access. If the guy’s 3000 miles away, you have a lot less to worry about than if he’s just on the other side of town.
If he feels justified, has no alternatives, does not fear the consequences, and has the ability to harm you, then you have good reason to be concerned.
One thing: Your account is brief, but when you say “I’ve told him in a variety of ways that I’m not interested in communicating with him” it sounds like you are making a mistake. Telling him you’re not interested in communicating with him IS communicating with him.
Of course, you had to tell him the first time, but now you should stop talking to him. Don’t answer any of his messages. Be resolute. If he sends you 20 messages calling you obscene names and you finally crack and tell him to buzz off, then you’ve taught him what he has to do to get a response from you.
Keep a case file. Keep all messages, record all exchanges. Document everything.
Don’t you use investigators in your business? You might want to consult them about this.
Otherwise, you could find some threat assessment experts. The big name in threat assessment is Gavin de Becker & Associates, which might be expensive. There ought to be lots of other firms, especially in the D.C. area (government employees get a lot of threats). Or you could try something like this.
If you take action against him via the police, you want it to be decisive. Otherwise you’ll just piss him off and he might come back at you. Unless you think he’s just clueless, in which case a police visit might wake him up to reality.
I vote for do something. I can understand feeling like you don’t want to overreact. But, the truth is, you’ll never know whether you overrreacted until it’s too late.
Also, the real stalker types are pretty scary. They don’t think rationally, they don’t listen to reason. So, I don’t think there’s any point in any further communication with him at all, and I don’t think there’s any point in expecting him to have a rational thought like, “Oh, she doesn’t want to hear from me any more, I should leave her alone.”
For all of these reasons, I vote for do something.
Oh yes, in case I didn’t make that clear, definitely do something. In specific situations like this, fear is a very trustworthy emotion. Do something effective, and do it right away. This is not a situation that will benefit from half-measures.
And definitely stop communicating with him. Your goal is not to win a religious argument or to convince him to be more polite. Your goal is to make him leave you alone. You do that by leaving him alone. Don’t even tell him to leave you alone. Just ignore his messages (or at least make it look that way to him).
Also, don’t threaten him, and don’t let your husband or family or coworkers or friendly cops threaten him. If you think he doesn’t like you now, it will get worse if he can claim to be persecuted.
report this guy right away
just dont respond to the guy and he will get bored. by responding your making him want to talk to you more.
I have a problem with a stalker too (who happens to be my mentally ill ex-boyfriend). He would write me disturbing Emails, he changed his aim name over 10 times to try to talk to me because I kept blocking him and he would call me up to 40 times a day, leaving disturbing voice mails. He even attempted suicide, twice. Reporting a stalker to the authorities isn’t as simple as it sounds. It’s actually a huge pain in the ass. Nonetheless, I definitely believe that is what you should do. I had to wait 30 days for a copy of my police report to be mailed to me. Then after that I had to present it in court to obtain a restraining order. It’s a pain, but honestly it sounds like you may be in very serious danger with this guy. Please try and get a restraining order, but while ur doing so, be very careful! Take care, and goodluck! And you can’t be too careful!
in addition to all said above, if you have mace/oc spray or a tazer/stun gun, carry it. ignoring, filing police/restraining orders won’t do shit against him if he comes after you. you need something to stop him long enough for you to get away and call the police if he does come after you.