How to Know if Someone is Stalking you

Stalking is one of the most serious forms of sexual harassment and yet it is not always taken seriously because of the lack of physical contact the behavior implies. Simply defined, stalking is a willful, malicious, repeated following or harassing of a person. According to Stephen Thompson, sexual assault services coordinator at Central Michigan University, "Stalking is any behavior that would make a reasonable person feel threatened, intimidated, annoyed, or afraid."

Sometimes however it is difficult to differentiate between stalking and mere unwanted attention and to tell a stalker from one who simply has difficulty taking no for an answer. The following are some useful markers which should warn you if you see the same person or are contacted by him/her on more than one occasion and place.

1. Reasonableness
   
   In order for a behavior to be labeled as stalking, the law usually considers if a reasonable person can feel threatened by the action involved. This implies actions which would disturb a regular, normally-adjusted social being as opposed to harmless actions which are enough to freak out paranoid or delusional persons.
    
2. Repetition
   
   One of the essential characteristics of stalking is that it happens again and again. This means that the person calls you on the phone, emails you, writes letters or graffiti, and waits for you outside your house, school or workplace persistently. 
    
3. Notice
   
   This is again a crucial marker of stalking. An obsessive behavior is categorically labeled as stalking if you have already told the perpetrator that his/her behavior makes you uncomfortable, that he/she is not to do it again and yet, they still do it. Sometimes teenage girls suffer from the ‘nice girl’ syndrome and fear that they may appear rude or unpopular if they specifically ask the perpetrator to stop his actions. However this can send out the wrong signals, making the perpetrator believe that the victim is enjoying the attention and despite apparently avoiding him, secretly wants more of it. So always make your intentions known to the perpetrator. Send out a clear and loud message and if possible before a witness that you would like this kind of behavior to stop.
   
4. Effect
   
   A behavior can qualify as stalking if you feel scared by it, no matter whether it is intended as such or not. Threatening behavior can range from overt abuses and threats to sending seemingly romantic gifts like flowers, chocolates or bizarre ones like letters written in blood. At times threatening behavior may also include manipulative acts as when the perpetrator vows to commit suicide if you don’t respond to the ‘emergency’ by initiating contact with him/her in some form.
    
5. Avoidability
   
   If the victim can easily avoid the situation, then the behavior may not qualify as stalking, especially in absence of previous characteristics. However if the perpetrator is waiting at a place that you cannot avoid going to or forcing you to confront them in a manner that you cannot escape, then it is definitely an indication of stalking.
    
6. Defamation – the perpetrator often lies about the victim to others. For instance he/she may spread false reports of your infidelity or lie to others about having had sex with you.
    
7. Objectification – The perpetrator derogates the victim, reducing him/her to an object. This behavior allows the stalker to feel angry with the victim without experiencing empathy or guilt.
    
8. While the most recognizable form of stalking behavior is following you about physically , other kinds could include:

• Trying to initiate or continue a relationship with you despite being told to back off.
   
• Threatening your safety or that of someone close to you like your child or partner.
   
• unwanted and repeated phone calls, emails and letters
   
• Physically harming you.

While there is no single psychological profile of a stalker, very often perpetrators of this kind appear to have certain common characteristics. For instance,

1. While women can stalk, most of the stalkers are men according to law enforcement agencies.
    
2. They are more likely to be someone you know than someone you don’t. This falls in the category of the simple obsessional type of stalker; the familiar perpetrators could include a former partner, a person with whom you had gone out on a casual date or merely an acquaintance. Very often the known kinds of stalkers turn out to be former intimates with a history of domestic violence.
    
3. There are several psychological traits which characterizes stalkers like mood, anxiety, and/or substance abuse disorders, low self-esteem, social insecurity, narcissism, intense jealousy and morbid infatuation.
    
4. In case of strangers, the stalking is usually borne out of a delusion that the victim is in love with the perpetrator or the victim is the ideal partner.  Thus a campaign is begun to make the existence of the perpetrator known to the victim, but at times the stalker may even keep the delusion a secret from the victim.
    
5. According to experts, it is common for stalkers to have experienced a traumatic event in the past seven years of their stalking behavior. This event could be loss of a job, parent, child or marriage. Also sometimes immigrants can display this kind of behavior as a result of experiencing acculturation stress, culture shock and suffering a sense of loss of one's culture of origin.

Many victims of stalking make the mistake, at least in the initial stage, of assuming that they are overreacting to unwanted attentions. The above markers of stalking will go a long way in evaluating your perceptions and seeing if they are indeed cause of concern. And finally listen to your own instinct since this will rarely lie about behavior which makes you uncomfortable and may be potentially dangerous.