Only a woman is capable of stalking someone, just so she could have the pleasure of ignoring him. –Aleksandra Ninkovic

If you have ever watched an episode of Cheers, you know that sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. It is a nice feeling to be welcomed and remembered, to have someone recognize you and ask you genuine questions about your life. At my previous job, I had a lot of regulars. Over time, I became knowledgeable of vehicles and work schedules, and grew accustomed to seeing certain people at certain times. I came to really know some of the clients and even became friendly with a lot of them. 

One in particular that I became close with was this super sweet stay at home mom. We had tons of stuff in common and would talk while she waited for her favorite bed to open up. I knew that even though I had only possessed a professional relationship with her, she was someone that I could see myself being friends with. One year, she had even gotten me this really good bottle of red wine on my birthday. It was so surprisingly thoughtful, I think I actually cried. We still sometimes communicate via Facebook; that is how sweet of a bond was developed. 

There was also another female regular that I got close with. She was maybe fifteen years older than me but we had a great deal of things in common. It took about a year for us to realize that we had even more in common than we originally thought; it turned out our husbands worked together at the same marina. And coincidentally, our husbands had a lot in common as well. They hated all the same people and had long since become friends. (A common enemy is a breeding ground for good friendship, at least in my experience.)

The business of producing Vitamin D in a concentrated tube is a good one to work in. It keeps people bronzed and happy. It promotes self-confidence and allows for the ever appreciated rejuvenating cat nap. It elicits relaxation and helps people feel good about themselves. Combine that with an expensive, perfected smile like mine and you’ve got people falling all over you. My old boss literally had hookups everywhere. 

There’s a fine line between support and stalking; let’s all stay on the right side of that. –Joss Whedon

I had some other regulars, however, that gave me an alternative vibe. I wouldn’t say bad, necessarily. More just like some of them teetered on the verge of creepy. I can almost promise that they meant well and were just being friendly but sometimes, it seemed a bit excessive.

For example, I had this one client who came only one day a week, after his alleged workout. He came every Saturday morning, usually around eleven. When he realized that I was there every single Saturday (because apparently I was the only one willing to get up in the morning after an alcohol soaked Friday night), he started to show up earlier and earlier, seemingly to spend more and more time with me.

I didn’t particularly mind in the beginning. We were usually pretty slow in the morning and it’s not like he was keeping me from my work. I enjoyed his conversation and although he was somewhere around sixty-five, I felt like I could identify with a lot of what he said. I never felt threatened, despite being alone in the salon with him and sometimes, I actually even enjoyed his life stories. He was one of those people who was just full of useless information (like me) and I usually felt smarter after talking to him. 

But then things sort of changed. He became sort of weirdly possessive over me and started calling me “Kiddo”. This one time I mentioned that I had a dentist appointment and the next Saturday he brought me a brand new Waterpik water flosser that I have since only used once because I almost blew my cheek off…

Another Saturday, my boss stopped by the salon to drop something off. Being professionally cordial with all of his clients, my former employer exchanged a few friendly words with the aforementioned regular. The regular, adamant about getting me a raise for whatever reason, rambled on about how great I was, how the company needed more people like me, and how I deserved some sort of monetary compensation for being so goddamn great.

I immediately blushed and was mortified. As if sitting behind a desk and checking people in required some massive amount of skill. Like folding towels and sanitizing tanning beds required any sort of prior knowledge or proficiency. But my seemingly ever charming boss just winked at me and turned towards the regular with a smile, “Yeah, we’ll keep her.”

I think the very word stalking implies that you’re not supposed to like it. Otherwise it would be called ‘fluffy harmless observation time’. –Molly Harper

There was another time where I was almost certain he actually was stalking me. I mean, I obviously can’t be sure but I’m still kind of curious. I was driving to work and realized when I was almost there that I had a flat tire. I made it to work and immediately called my husband, who had just started working across the street. He told me he would swing by after work and take care of it.     

    

Well, it was a Saturday, so just take a guess who showed up? And not only did he show up but he asked me about the flat first thing, before I even mentioned it. He also, quite conveniently, had one of those portable air compressors in the bed of his El Camino… 

He asked for my keys and said he would take a look at it to see if he could tell whether or not it was a leak. I insisted, over and over again, that my very capable husband was on his way but eventually decided that it couldn’t hurt to have another person take a look at it in the meantime. 

It ended up being something of a minor fiasco because he purposely stayed until my husband got there, which I found to be super awkward and weird. He wanted to allegedly ensure that my husband was privy to whatever he believed the issue to be. (Although it is totally justified, I STILL haven’t heard the end of that one from my super sweet but super possessive husband. The truth is that he just refuses to play second fiddle; he is very proud and protective of me, and always had a strange feeling about this regular I would tell him about.)

As the days turned into weeks, I thought about how weird all of it was. The notion of him just happening to see that I had a flat tire could have been legitimate; it’s not an enormous parking lot, so it could have been easy to deduce which car was mine. Although with low profile tires like mine, I feel like you would have to walk right up on my vehicle to realize that I had a flat…

Similarly with the portable air compressor: that could have been legit, I guess, if I’m being fair. I mean, not everyone flies around by the seat of their pants like I do. It just all seemed far too convenient, almost as if it was staged. Maybe I’ve read too many true crime books but I started to think: What if he had something to do with this and that’s why he was so prepared? And while I kept reminding myself that I was almost certainly paranoid, a huge part of me still wonders.

-Holy shit, you’re the most accomplished stalker I’ve ever met.
-It’s not stalking if you like it.
-Aleksandr Voinov, Gold Digger

I had this other regular who was a transfer from another location. He told me the first time I met him that I had incredible eyes. I’m going to be real with all of you: compliments make me super uncomfortable. It’s sort of like when you have to open a Christmas present in front of the person who gave it to you. It’s terrible, like everyone is looking at you. 

Well naturally, because it’s me, I sort of smiled back at him and said, “Thanks, they’re green,” as if he couldn’t realize that on his own while he was staring creepily into them. I didn’t mean to be so awkward about it but his stare was almost painful. It’s like his eyes were incinerating, like he was burning a hole right through me.

He was nice enough, I guess, but he came on super strong. Let me clarify: I understand that sometimes men hit on women (or vice versa) because they don’t know, just by looking at them, that they’re married (or dating someone). But there is a huge difference between people who quite frankly, could care less about your marital status and thereby disrespect the absolute SHIT out of you by hitting on you shamelessly, and people who unknowingly pay you a compliment out of pure, genuine appreciation. This man didn’t seem to be bothered in the slightest that I was married and kept shoving this stupid Post-It with his number on it in my face. 

After a little bit of this, I got a little visibly irritated and politely said, “Listen, I’m married. And to be quite honest, if I wanted your number that badly, it’s in your client profile…” [Disclaimer: I obviously never have and never would do that but I’m just making a point.]

He came back the next two days in a row, begging that I just take his number and come visit him at the restaurant he worked at. (And I’m sorry, not that it matters, but as a waiter. And he was thirty-nine.) “I’m moving to Jupiter next month,” he told me and I inwardly shouted with excitement, “and if you want, you could help me decorate my new place.” I just smiled, revealing that one little dimple I have and said pretty sarcastically, “Great, I’ll bring my husband! He loves all that DIY shit.” He laughed it off, because honestly, I’m sure I was just one of many girls he did this to, and shook his head. But I seriously think that he believed I would be sad to see him go. 

SUCH an idiot. Men are seriously such idiots. And what makes them even BIGGER idiots is that they think WE’RE the idiots. Men think that they can just pull things over on us all the time. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve caught a man in some stupid, worthless lie, I would be living on my own island right now. But I digress, back to the story:

And then, NO JOKE, I saw him a few nights later at the St. Patrick’s Day celebration in Downtown Dunedin. I was with my husband and in-laws, working on my third whiskey when there he was, ahead of me in the Jameson line. He locked eyes with me for only a second, saw my husband standing next to me, and then just kept walking. I guess he finally realized that my husband wasn’t just some made up person I used to brush off guys over thirty-five. 

Moral of the Crazy: While I could probably go on and on for actual days recounting tales of the Stalker Life and other monstrosities, I’ll go ahead and end this here. I’m sure you’ve all got places to be. The lesson to be taken away from all of this is that you can’t mind-control people into loving you. You cannot push them and push them until they snap back at you and then get all offended by it.

You also probably shouldn’t maintain some twisted, alternate version of reality when Google is right at our fingertips. I won’t sit here and pretend that I haven’t stalked people in my time. It’s something that I’m sure most of us have engaged in when the situation is right. When I found out that my ex was cheating on me, I used to “drop by” the store his other girlfriend worked at just to make my presence known. I wanted her to know that I knew what was going on and I wanted to rattle her. Because in my head, it was all justified; I had every right to infringe on her personal space because she had gotten all up in mine. 

But I quickly got over that when I realized that rather than ruffle her feathers, this whole stalking debacle was just making me look pathetic. That her and all her cute, little surfer-girl co-workers would just use it as an excuse to talk tons of shit about me and how crazy I was. Hey, that’s me: Crazy Katie!

Here’s the lesson, friends: Stalking is very weird and scary, and it frightens people. The amount of effort it takes for people to learn someone else’s daily habits, inner workings and other various personal information is mildly disturbing. Despite the fact that that person may not want you in their life, you’re bound to put yourself there and determined to blatantly ignore their wishes. It’s twisted and creepy after the age of twenty. (And I’m using the age of twenty because I honestly feel like alcohol consumption should alleviate a lot of the propensities to be all bizarre and stalky.) 

And also, the fact that people are so commonly addicted to the absolute plethora of social networking applications in existence should deplete the likelihood of physically stalking people who want nothing to do with you. Quite frankly, just take the hint. If they blow you off, there’s probably a reason. Maybe they just don’t like you or maybe you did something weird one time and it destroyed the few good things they saw in you. 

Basically, unless they’re a celebrity who is regularly paid for trashy tabloid photos (my personal favorite), no one likes to be stalked. Being a creep is just bad, m’kay?

There was a time when our desire for each other would have landed us in an asylum or prison, had it not been sanctioned by mutual assent. –Lawrence Krauser, Lemon