I've been on both sides of the divide.
I minorly stalked one of my now best friends for the larger part of secondary school - anonymous texts, sent her love letters, badgered her to death, etc. Over time we built up a brilliant friendship - I realised what I was doing and told myself it had to stop, and apart from the occasional drunken text to tell her I loved her it did. She doesn't resent me for it at all, and never let it be said that stalking gets you nowhere... ;)

However, the more interesting story is that of my first girlfriend. We will call her Louise.

Probably late 2003-ish, I met a girl through a forum (her name escapes me now - Girl A will do) who lived the other side of town. I didn't really take to her, she gave my email out to all her friends and so they all got blocked.

Fast forward to April 2006. I notice someone on my contact list who I've not seen online before; they're blocked. I unblock them, turns out it's one of Girl A's friends, Louise. She seems like a pretty good laugh, we start talking and get on fairly well, into the same kind of music etc.

We talk some more, and the inevitable webcam funfest happens - I am by now most definitely getting my end away I meet up with this girl. The internet relationship begins in late May.

Early June, and it's my birthday. My dad's just got back up on his feet after my parents' divorce, and he decrees that a party is in order to celebrate my 15th year on the planet. I invite Louise to the party (bear in mind she doesn't know anyone and I've never met her before this point), not really expecting her to turn up.

Only she does. She's a bit on the chubby side (well hidden in photos and webcam), but very pretty nonetheless. So hypnoticme spends his 15th birthday in his room with Louise, who he has met 30 minutes before and exchanged only pleasantries with. Fun is had. All is well.

Fast forward two months; my virginity is now but a distant memory, and apart from some minor hitches it has been sex sex sex and everything's wonderful. Although I am rapidly tiring of Louise - turns out that once it comes down to it, we barely know each other and we're just shagging to make up for it. "Fcuk this," thinks me, "I'm getting out of here."

And so I gently break it to Louise that it's just not working - over MSN, as any true man should. Enter the heavily tearful call with psychotic, Napoleon-complex father (I was about 6'5" at this point) seizing her phone and telling me that I was going to get butchered by his army mates. I laugh - he was in the TA for 6 months, and claimed to have served in the RLI until 1987 (it disbanded 1/11/1980) - call is ended and phone goes off. Ho hum, I have exams to worry about when I go back to school, fuck the heavily Catholic criminal tribe that is her family, I don't need their crap.

The next day, phone is switched back on. Inbox is full of texts, that culminate in her going throwing herself off a railway bridge if I don't text back. This was at ridiculous o'clock in the morning and it's now mid-afternoon. Oooops. And so, I ring her. Obviously, she isn't now travelling courtesy of one of Arriva's windscreens, and we have a conversation. I tell her to get some help, she cries a bit, but agrees that it's for the best that we split up.

But now, it's mid-2007 and I can't escape her. Over the past year, she has systematically added my entire MySpace contact list. She has told them all sorts of lies about me that have led to full-blown screaming arguments in the street with people I've never seen before. Groups of metalheads in their 20s and 30s regularly harass me. She has stalked the friends that listened to her in the first place - every single one of them finds her creepy. She regularly falls in and out of love with these people, irrespective of gender. She has followed THREE of my female mates home and declares them her best friends. She messages me weekly asking me how things are going and rubbing in how great her life is with my friends, detailing trips out and days in, not knowing how much she scares them - they're just too nice to fuck her off.

Suddenly, all goes quiet. I hear nothing from her. Bliss, I now have peace for my exams. Ensuing months are Louise-free.

Yesterday, she messaged me on MySpace. The message ended in "i love you lots xxx".

I'm scared.

Before you ask, too lengthy for her, and my girth is the stuff of legend.
(hypnoticme is an anarcho-syndicalist commune, Fri 1 Feb 2008, 3:26, Reply)