The Taming of the Stalker

I´ve never had a stalker. A flasher, yes. When I was a teenager, working in my first advertising agency, I would walk home from work to my flat and regularly encounter a tall, thin, redhead standing in front of his first story flat's floor-to-ceiling windows tugging away as though he was trying to beat the Guiness Book of Records.

But a stalker, never. Well, not that I noticed. I am usually pretty good at obliterating any unwanted attention in its early stages by becoming cold, distant and impossibly unavailable. I mean, I play the Ice Queen so well, it´s worth adorning the title with capital letters. There are probably men, all over the world, in therapy to this day having been on the receiving end of my cold shoulder.

I'm not trying to codone this kind of behaviour, it´s definitely a last resort. But sometimes it's the only thing that will work. Turning yourself from an object of desire into somebody that could possibly be a bunny boiler is one that works for me.

Unfortunately these desperate measures aren´t always appropriate. Sometimes, it´s delicate. Your stalker is a psycho. Hmn, at what stage do you bring in the police without putting your safety at risk...especially if they don´t hear you out...we´ve all read about those murder victims who had non molestation orders on their perpertrators.

Or your stalker suffers from depression or is bi-polar, i mean who wants to be responsible for suicide? And heavens forbid that your stalker is the local drug dealer or dj and you will never again be hooked up on the social front; afterall, you live in buttfuck-nowheresville. Can you afford to cut off your nose to spite your face? Or even if your stalker is a perfectly nice, reasonable man (if not a little stalker-ish) that you're just not interested in. Ever. What do you do?

Ummmmmmm. Thinking. Thinking. He knows where you live. He has your phone number. Sadly, he never calls so that you can make up an excuse, he just turns up. This makes it that much more difficult because it´s plainly obvious to the entire world as to whether or not you´re at home. My house is a goldfish bowl. If i´m in, the ranchsliders are open. If I´m not, the 'persianas' are down & it´s clearly all locked up. One of my stalkers likes to go fishing, hence it´s completely reasonable that he should 'happen' to be passing by my bay.

So, can´t hide, can´t not pick up the phone, this has to be dealt with face to face. So far I have managed to buy myself some freedom via a few trips abroad and have blamed my current lack of form on sheer exhaustion & and deflected the question of social engagement thanks to an impending family visit. But these little white lies are going to give me about a week's grace, max. Because his sidekick, who is a little younger and much more of a 'player', has started to catch on and usher his lovestruck mate out of my place in record time. Which is great on the surface, but...

Here´s where you start to walk the fine line. You don´t want the mate getting all protective and attempting to help the stalker avoid heartache by starting to portray you as a cold-hearted, using bitch who isn´t interested in anything other than his guestlist or cartel connections. Nor do you want to actually hurt or offend the stalker, you just need to recuperate your energy levels and make a concerted effort to appear at a social occasion where there´s safety in numbers. In this manner, you are showing your commitment to the friendship by turning up. Even if he is delusional and sees it that you´ve turned up to see him, that´s his problem. As any magician will tell you, it´s all about the illusion.

So, if you happen to get a little tipsy and end up going home with the security guard or one of stalker's football team colleagues, he's not going to like it but your slate is still gonna be clean. Well, cleanish. But due to the nature of this strategy, it can bring on the whole new problem of you appearing to be too easy. He might start to think that if you'll nail a stranger, the only thing that's been holding him back has been his own inability to ask you directly to turn it up.

At this point, perhaps your best bet is to confess to suffering from alcoholism or drug abuse and a complete lack of control over your life and explain that you can´t possibly be in any kind of relationship with anybody until such time as you have successfully completed the 12 step programme and have the permission of your sponsor to maintain relations of any description with anybody other than your fellow AA's.

Stalkers are annoying and scary. Ideally they don´t happen. But when they do, they need to be dealt with quickly and efficiently in order to minimise any negative repercussions. It would be wonderful if people would just take the signals or guidance we try to communicate, but we all know love...or lust...is blind. And deaf and dumb. Wish me luck!