By
Justin Snider
, Amherst College
How
Not To Stalk: An Insider’s Guide
I haven’t seen my stalker in eighteen months. I got an email from her two
weeks ago, however, shattering all hope that she had finally lost track of my
scent. I have moved twice (even out of the country!) and changed email addresses
three times in the past year, and yet she still always finds me. In this most
recent email, she promised to stop writing if she didn’t hear back from me
soon. I had a hearty laugh at this, for it was hedged rather like a threat, or
at least a last-ditch reminder that I stood to lose something precious.
Naturally, I didn’t respond, as I haven’t in the past two years - not to
phone calls, letters, packages, emails to five different addresses, etc. So I
figured the matter was settled, at long last, and I did a kind of primitive
victory dance in my room. I even let out a variation on the barbaric “yalp”
Robin Williams solicits from his students in Dead Poets Society. Heaven
knows she was probably watching all of this - I am certain there are hidden
cameras in my room - but I didn’t care at all. I took her at her word, that
she would leave me alone forever.
Yeah right. Yesterday I received an email from one of her friends and I
realized how, in fact, the war was only just beginning. Not that the person
identified himself as her friend, of course - she and her network are far too
subtle for that. He simply wrote saying he was interested in studying German -
fancy that, the same subject I study! - and that he was looking for advice on
whether to study in America, Germany or Austria. He had just been randomly
surfing the web from his home in Mexico, looking at “good” universities in
the States and somehow came across my email address. Gimme a break. I soon
realized I was, in fact, reading about my own life in his email, for I have
studied German in America, Germany, and Austria (and of course none of this
information is available on the web). Who does he think he is kidding?
When I tell people I have a stalker, they are invariably intrigued and beg to
hear more. They figure I must lead some kind of double life, for they know my
“real” life (whatever that means) is as boring as senior year calculus or
unloading the dishwasher. No less routine than clean. Unfortunately, I always
disappoint my audience because they expect to hear a story of past love turned
vicious or (better yet) bloody, how I caught my girlfriend cheating on me and
shot her lover dead in bed. They would even settle to hear about how I had a
one-night stand with an illiterate lassie in Texas who - screaming only “Diamond,
diamond!” - has since followed me from Chicago to New York to Los Angeles. No
such luck.
