In Part 1 we distinguished the difference between due diligence and stalking. In Part II I submitted my litmus test questions to red flag when one might be crossing the line. Today, in Part III, we conclude the series with two real life examples.
EXAMPLE 1: On the RSVP Dating Stories blog, she gives the example of her friend James. James found out all kinds of information on a woman he is interested in, which in my mind is fair game as long as it is available to the public and gained without false pretenses. It doesn’t matter how much work he had to sort through to find it—if it was available to the public then I think it is in bounds.
Where James crossed the line is when he met her under false pretenses by engineering a chance meeting and pretended it was all happen-stance. Waiting outside her house to bump into her crosses into creepy land. He should have just asked her out on the Ferry and been honest about it. So James crossed the line into Cyber-stalker land IMO.
EXAMPLE 2: I recently heard a story of a person who was dumped. This person was dumped in a respectful way, being told that the he or she didn’t want to continue the relationship or continue seeing them. Obviously, the person getting dumped has every right to be pissed and hurt. So that part is not debatable.
But our dumpee continued to keep tabs on the dumper using information kept from when they were dating. The dumper was was not aware the dumped still had access to this information, yet the dumpee continued to track the dumper’s personal information such as his or her travel plans. The dumpee even went so far as to worry about the Dumper’s well being after noticing that his or her plans changed on short notice.
(My apologies for the awkwardness of the wording. I am trying to keep it gender neutral obviously.)
I mentioned to this person that they had crossed the lines into Stalker. To which the dumpee replied that he or she was not a stalker unless he or she drove over to try to see her EX.
Let’s review the Litmus test questions to determine if this person has crossed the line into the realm of stalker:
- Was the information available to the public at large? – No
- Have you been dumped? – Yes
- Would a reasonable person be creeped out? – Yes, a reasonable person would be creeped out if he or she was making a concerted effort to keep his or her movements private, and his or her ex was secretly monitoring him or her despite his or her wishes.
- Does the dumpee have legitimate use for the information? – No.
- Was the dumpee gaining the information under false pretenses? – Yes.
- Does the dumper want the dumpee looking at his or her stuff? — No. In fact, going to great efforts to remain private.
- Is the dumpee keeping a shit file on them? –Yes.
Conclusion: Congrats. The Dumpee has earned Full-out Stalker status.
Stalking is stalking, regardless if it is online or offline. The bottom line is that a person has a right to privacy. If you ignore that person’s right to privacy, it is considered a form of harassment and you are entering Stalker territory.
Pretty much, once you are dumped you do not have a legitimate use for the person’s private information. It is a much different scenario than when you are building trust and learning what you are getting into.
I will close by saying that this is my personal opinion based on very limited experience and no professional credentials on the subject what so ever. What do you think? Does my logic pass the common sense test?
Smooth ReEntry 