4 ms·

That's just not what stalking means. It's a pretty serious crime with a real definition, not just "I don't like somebody" or "they hurt my feelings" or whatever

That's just not what stalking means. It's a pretty serious crime with a real definition, not just "I don't like somebody" or "they hurt my feelings" or whatever. You're free to call it creepy or frightening or anything else, it's just not what stalking is though. You've made up your own definition of the word.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
According to the US DOJ: The term “stalking” means engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress. https://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking https://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking At some point, someone told me (to my surprise -- they were rebutting some comment I made online) that horror movies tend to have mostly female audiences. A lot of horror movies have plot lines that sound a fair amount like stalking or some exaggerated fantasy version of stalking. A lot of women suffer substantial emotional distress and fear for their own safety due to the behavior of men they know who will not give it a rest. Men tend to be bigger than women, outweigh them, have a strength advantage, are more likely to have combat training or martial arts classes, etc. One article I read years ago indicated that when asked what they most feared from a woman, men feared being laughed at. Women feared being killed (by men). Men may not be comfortable hearing that their behavior can be taken as threatening and scary to women when they think they are just being "a hopeless romantic." But I am absolutely not making up my own definition of anything.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  "I have decided that woman is 'out of his league', therefore the fact he appears to be pursuing a relationship with her causes me to fear for her safety" would not meet the reasonable person test. To be clear I wasn't challenging you on how you personally feel, you don't need to justify that to me. And I'm not being pejorative or trying to say your feelings are less valid with "reasonable", just following the legal term.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    I didn't decide she was out of his league. His own statements indicate he pursued her with a tenacity he did not believe himself capable of, in spite of his first attempt to chat her up going badly. At no point does he appear to have had any success in establishing some kind of romantic relationship to her. She was far from the only person in this tale to extend him forbearance on the strength of his empty promise that he would get Brando. The title of the piece mirrors the title of Waiting for Godot, a play in which everyone's thoughts, discussions and actions revolve around a character who never shows up. Brando never showed up but was the reason so many doors opened for the author. He offered her a leading role at a young age, a role she told him she had always wanted to play. There is no evidence his interest in her was ever reciprocated. He did this movie largely to have an excuse to remain in contact with her, apparently having no prior experience in the industry. If that isn't targeting her in specific, I don't know what is.
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      You did decide that, pursuing someone with tenacity doesn't mean there is no chance, you just decided it. In any case it really is immaterial to whether or not he's a stalker anyway. Even if he did believe he had little or no chance, even if he had little or no chance, that still doesn't mean he can't try. There does not have to be any evidence his interest was reciprocated. It doesn't matter that he tried to make a movie for her to win her affection. This isn't stalking. You can't just pick words out of the statute and fit them to thought or behavior. "Targeting" -- of course you can "target" a specific person for a friendship or relationship. That isn't stalking, how else are you going to do it? You have to apply the entire test, and "reasonable person" is one of big ones here.
      - DoreenMichele 4y ago
        You are conflating two things: A general observation I made that If there is no hope she will ever say "yes", he knows that and pursues her anyway, he is a stalker, not a hopeless romantic. and my original statement that the author sounds like borderline a stalker. At no point did I assert definitively that the author was clearly a stalker. If it looks that way to you, that's perhaps because this is an overwhelmingly male forum and I am getting a lot of replies essentially fairly strongly shooting me down and I happen to be choosing to reply to many of those replies to me. That's kind of an unfortunate numbers game on HN and it's sometimes a no-win situation if a woman chooses to make a remark on an issue of this sort and it happens to get a lot of push back. At this point, you are implying that I am not a "reasonable person" and you are doubling down on insisting I did things that I never did. That's veering into territory that the guidelines suggest should be avoided and I am stepping away from this conversation.

DoreenMichele 4y ago

According to the US DOJ: The term “stalking” means engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or her safety or the safety of others or suffer substantial emotional distress. https://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking https://www.justice.gov/ovw/stalking At some point, someone told me (to my surprise -- they were rebutting some comment I made online) that horror movies tend to have mostly female audiences. A lot of horror movies have plot lines that sound a fair amount like stalking or some exaggerated fantasy version of stalking. A lot of women suffer substantial emotional distress and fear for their own safety due to the behavior of men they know who will not give it a rest. Men tend to be bigger than women, outweigh them, have a strength advantage, are more likely to have combat training or martial arts classes, etc. One article I read years ago indicated that when asked what they most feared from a woman, men feared being laughed at. Women feared being killed (by men). Men may not be comfortable hearing that their behavior can be taken as threatening and scary to women when they think they are just being "a hopeless romantic." But I am absolutely not making up my own definition of anything.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
"I have decided that woman is 'out of his league', therefore the fact he appears to be pursuing a relationship with her causes me to fear for her safety" would not meet the reasonable person test. To be clear I wasn't challenging you on how you personally feel, you don't need to justify that to me. And I'm not being pejorative or trying to say your feelings are less valid with "reasonable", just following the legal term.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I didn't decide she was out of his league. His own statements indicate he pursued her with a tenacity he did not believe himself capable of, in spite of his first attempt to chat her up going badly. At no point does he appear to have had any success in establishing some kind of romantic relationship to her. She was far from the only person in this tale to extend him forbearance on the strength of his empty promise that he would get Brando. The title of the piece mirrors the title of Waiting for Godot, a play in which everyone's thoughts, discussions and actions revolve around a character who never shows up. Brando never showed up but was the reason so many doors opened for the author. He offered her a leading role at a young age, a role she told him she had always wanted to play. There is no evidence his interest in her was ever reciprocated. He did this movie largely to have an excuse to remain in contact with her, apparently having no prior experience in the industry. If that isn't targeting her in specific, I don't know what is.
  - throwawaylinux 4y ago
    You did decide that, pursuing someone with tenacity doesn't mean there is no chance, you just decided it. In any case it really is immaterial to whether or not he's a stalker anyway. Even if he did believe he had little or no chance, even if he had little or no chance, that still doesn't mean he can't try. There does not have to be any evidence his interest was reciprocated. It doesn't matter that he tried to make a movie for her to win her affection. This isn't stalking. You can't just pick words out of the statute and fit them to thought or behavior. "Targeting" -- of course you can "target" a specific person for a friendship or relationship. That isn't stalking, how else are you going to do it? You have to apply the entire test, and "reasonable person" is one of big ones here.
    - DoreenMichele 4y ago
      You are conflating two things: A general observation I made that If there is no hope she will ever say "yes", he knows that and pursues her anyway, he is a stalker, not a hopeless romantic. and my original statement that the author sounds like borderline a stalker. At no point did I assert definitively that the author was clearly a stalker. If it looks that way to you, that's perhaps because this is an overwhelmingly male forum and I am getting a lot of replies essentially fairly strongly shooting me down and I happen to be choosing to reply to many of those replies to me. That's kind of an unfortunate numbers game on HN and it's sometimes a no-win situation if a woman chooses to make a remark on an issue of this sort and it happens to get a lot of push back. At this point, you are implying that I am not a "reasonable person" and you are doubling down on insisting I did things that I never did. That's veering into territory that the guidelines suggest should be avoided and I am stepping away from this conversation.