[LMB] [SPAM?] Re: OT: stalkers

[CatMtn at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/22/2007 10:39:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
martinsgill at gmail.com writes:

> > Has anyone noticed how much stalking resembles old fashioned  romance
> > taken to extremes?


M:  Maybe old-fashioned romance fiction, not the real  thing!
>
> What, you never listened to the lyrics of  the  song that includes, "I'll
> be watching you.... Ev'ry breath you  make/Ev'ry step you take/I'll be
> watching you... Since you've been  gone I've been lost without a trace...
> your embrace... I'll be  watching you, I'll be watching you..."  I think
> of it as "the  stalker song" myself.

Martin:
Having been (still am) unlucky in love, I've sometimes wondered  if
that's the result of me not being "determined" enough.

I've had  loads of people (respectable and trustworthy) tell me that
women like to  play "hard to get". That if "every man accepted no for
an answer the human  race wouldn't exist" etc etc.
 
M:  
That sounds like rationalization for r*pe.

Martin:
For some reason a scene from Lethal Weapon II jumps into my mind  at
this point. The scene were Gibbson is in the supermarket and the  lady
says "no", and he says "come on, everyone says 'no', say 'yes'  be
different", then she says "yes".

This behaviour isn't limited to  us humans, often enough in the animal
kingdom the mating rituals start with  the female rejecting the male,
who then has to persist, in effect persuade  the female to accept him.
 
M:
This is true.  However, mating in most, although not  all, animal species 
requires cooperation by the female.  In humans  and some apes, unfortunately it 
does not.  

Martin:
I just wonder if stalking, as such, is actually a bi-product of  this
behaviour. If you stalk enough you get a mate, if you don't stalk  you
lose out. If you stalk too much, you get a jail cell. Admittedly  by
the second or third "no" the guy should have the good grace  to
sod-off, but if you have the above societal wisdoms running around  in
your head, you might keep wondering if the next answer will be  a
"yes".
 
M:
Don't keep wondering, it wastes time when you could be out looking for a  
woman who would say "Yes."

Martin:
Interestingly enough... the UK law (Harassment Act 1997) on good  ol'
Mel Gibbson above would consider his actions as harassment "if  a
reasonable person (consider members of a jury) deems what is  happening
to you to be harassment" [1] (depending on how "occasion" is  defined,
I suspect).
 
M:
"Reasonable" is just weasel-wording that allows a law to be  interpreted by 
the standards of the community the offense occurred  in.

Martin:
I just wonder if the ladies on this list could answer that... how  many
times have you said no to a guy ( a brush off, or ignoring him  would
also count as a "no") who you then ended up going out with or  even
marrying? Or are these titbits of folk-wisdom just us men trying  to
excuse our persistence?
 
M:
I think women who say no and mean yes usually qualify the no in some way  
that would let a man know that another time she would  probably say yes.  Like 
"Not tomorrow, I already have plans.   How about some other time?"

Martin:
In end, like most things I suspect, nothing is black and white.  The
hard part is finding where the line is drawn. What one person  might
consider "reasonable" another might not.
 
M:
Exactly what it's meant for.  In some cultures women expect to be  pursued 
and courted before they say yes, in others they consider it  intrusive.  
However, men who have trouble taking no for an  answer usually also have trouble 
finding anyone to go out with once  the word gets around.
 
Mary

[1] https://secure.nss.org.uk/3933/myths.html#THREE (a  stalking
charity in the UK, with vast quantities of  advice)








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