"Misery" Can it happen to you?

Hate to bust your bubble, but Misery wasn't about a stalker -- per se. The story was opportunity...as with your friend, or the guy who works at the gym.

A real stalker doesn't always offer passes to the tanning salon. Sorry...

Sorry Jo, but reading the book five times and the movie countless times can't account for the allegory defect in the preamble. Stalkers do come in all shapes and sizes, but they are pervasive creatures who make their presence known. That wasn’t the case with Misery. The chance encounter began a tale of obsessive fan manipulation to write the book she believed he should write.

Gee...I hadn't thought of Misery in years and the plot was so obvious.

Jo Scott said:

And I'm not asking for if it was a stalking tale or not, I'm asking about stalkers...have you had one?

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If I did they were good eating.

Jo Scott said:

EEEEEEEW....LOL! I was just going to ask if you were a stalker! I think I will keep that quiet now...and change my location sign...lol.

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Nah, I just work at McD's...

Spooky!

Anyone for shuffleboard?

Jo, yes I had one experience a long time ago; Whisky on ice, women on fire.

It was nowhere as bad as yours. I would do something about this, if I were you.

My ex-boyfriend is currently stalking me. We broke up about 8 months ago and he continues to call me and send me things in the mail. The last thing I received from him was almost a month ago, it was an easter card, a picture of me, and a cassette tape filled up on both sides with him talking on it.

It was just like the psychos in the movies...he talks about all the relationships I had before him, he says he'll never leave me alone, he makes fun of me, tells me what people said about me, cries, gets mad, etc....and then at the end of the tape he invited me over to his house for Easter to help him through this because it is 'my job to help him get over me'.

Of course I didn't go...and he called that night, but I never answered. Before, I would always feel bad and talk to him to make him feel better, but I realized that just made him think that I still liked him. So now I've started to ignore him, and I'm hoping that will work, but I know it probably won't. I read somewhere that stalkers usually pursue their victims for 2 years. He still comes by my work, but now my co-workers just call the police on him and report a drunk driver on the road. (He only comes into my store when he's drunk). I was told that I needed to tell everyone around me, and not keep it a secret that I'm being stalked.

A very good book I recently read was The Gift of Fear. It's scary to read, but it makes alot of sense.

So, I don't know what my next move will be. Like I said, it's been almost a month, so I guess I'm kind of waiting to see what happens.

But it's not fun having to watch over my shoulder everywhere I go.

Yes, and thankfully it was a brief encounter.

I used to work in a casino and one day, I met a man sitting in my station. (I was a cocktail server.) He was cute. Anyway, as I worked my shift, we exchanged a few words and finally a few sentences, a few paragraphs.

I kind of knew I had made an error when he posed a question, "I live in Summerlin, where do you live?" and I answered him with the name of my apartment complex.


As the day went on, he practically chasing me around my station and became ridiculous when I was speaking to other male customers. I alerted my manager, who called surveillance. They sent up an officer and eventually, after watching him, escorted him out of the casino.

The next day, I was sick and called into work. About 6:15 PM, the exact time I would be coming home from work, I looked out my apartment window (it was a gated community) and the man was standing in front of my apartment. He didn't know he was standing in front of my apartment, and I could hear him asking people if they knew where a cocktail server from my casino worked. As this was Las Vegas, all the neighbors said no. I called my boss at work and told them the guy was hanging around outside. I literally hid inside until he left.


Thankfully, he never bothered me after that. He did eventually start showing up at the casino again, but I ran like heck to get away from him and he got the hint. His gambling freedom was more important to him then chasing me. After that, his nickname at the casino was "the stalker."

Rane, that’s not good. Tell him what he is, a stalker and tell him you will take action if he ever bothers you again.

I can't decide if getting the police involved would make the situation better or worse.

I've told him before that he's a drunk, a psycho, and he's too old for me. (He's 44 and i'm 28). And I also tell him that I will involve the police and he just laughs.

Of all the names I called him, he did NOT like being called a psycho. He couldn't understand why I called him that, and the first half of the tape he sent me talks all about that. He repeatedly uses the word 'psycho' and lists reasons as to why he is not one.

One good thing, after we broke up he got drunk (as usual) and got a DUI. So now he has to have those yellow license plates on his car. That means that he won't go out as much as he could, because he doesn't want to get caught again. He only gets the guts to do something when he's been drinking.

I'm just glad my family and friends are there to help me if I need it.

Call the cops.

A poster I angered on another writing board declared his intent to track me down in "real life." He decided I was some female stand-up comic in NYC (which is drastically untrue) and started sending me scary sexual PMs.

Nothing compared to the stories in this thread, but still creepy.

Jo Scott said:

Thats horrible, especially for the one who he thought was you. Can you imagine a man standing in your driveway at 5 am with a gun and saying "Why did you say that to me?" And the person had no idea who or why this man is there.

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I sent her an e-mail, trying to give her a heads-up. How bewildering must that have been? (If she even read it.)

Also scary was that he was less than a hundred miles from my real location at the time. Eesh.

I don't bust trolls anymore.

God bless!

William Haskins won't stop calling. He's threatened my family, even killed one of my dogs and carved a "Z + W 4ever" in its pelt.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

There was a stalker on the amazon reviewers board I used to be on. She haunted it for years, and used to go after perceived enemies on it. A troll on the boards, she managed to hack into members' computers and send emails to other members using their real emails. ALso signing in under the IDs of members and posting obscene mesages in their names. She would find out the real names, addresses, mothers' names etc of certain posters and post them on the board. She appeared as one ID after the other, first of all befriending people, then turning into the stalker from hell. Luckily, she never went after me, but I did have a prolonged email relationship with her before she showed her true colours. She was real creepy. Just thinking about her makes my skin crawl.
There was a discussion about her a few months back on the NEPAT overflow and someone using one of her aliases appeared on the thread. The mods figured that it wasn't her, though. She likes to haunt message boards looking for attention and victims.

Some of these stories are pretty scary.

I had an innocuous "stalker" boy in high school. He liked me. Me? Not so much into him. He used to come to my house at all hours without calling first (I think he knew I was avoiding him).

Once, he showed up at my door with my parents mail claiming it had been delivered to his house by mistake. He lived blocks away and had a long unpronounceable Hungarian name. My maiden name is 4 letters.

He left me alone after he went off to university. Thank goodness. He was boring as hel!!

CaroGirl said:

My maiden name is 4 letters.

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Bush?

Rane said:

...and he called that night, but I never answered. ...

A very good book I recently read was The Gift of Fear. It's scary to read, but it makes alot of sense.

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I read that book too. Are you following de Becker's advice in not answering your ex's calls, Rane, or did you just get totally fed up?

I've never had a stalker, and I don't know what I'd do if I did. The Gift of Fear is interesting and plausible, but so much of what it says is inconsistent with conventional wisdom, especially on the issues of restraining orders and police involvement.

I solved all my potential problems by marrying my first girlfriend, not having any particular friends, moving frequently, and in general Not Knowing People. Also, I just checked and I'm not James Caan, so I'm safe from the "Misery" problem. Thank goodness.

(That was a great book.)

(I'm not actually THAT reclusive, really.)

I keep hoping for a stalker. But so far, no luck. I guess I'm just not stalkable enough.

I'd be easy to stalk! I hardly ever move! I practically never leave my apartment!

rpl said:

I read that book too. Are you following de Becker's advice in not answering your ex's calls, Rane, or did you just get totally fed up?

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I'm following the advice given in the book, and also on a stalking victims website that I belong to. They both say to ignore and document. So this is the first time that I've actually ignored his call, and I'm also writing everything down, no matter how little it is.

I used to throw away things that he sent me in the mail, but now I'm keeping them for evidence in case I ever need it.

PeeDee said:

I'd be easy to stalk! I hardly ever move! I practically never leave my apartment!

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Number please, I have friends who like easy prey.