A Stalker is Born

Felt like it was time to do a little story about something that has truly bothered the hell out of me in the past. What is Second Life without a little dramarama, right? This is my account of actual happenings during an extended time in SL. The whole idea of stalking, especially from the side of being stalked is something I didn't expect and yet, it happened to me and probably has happened to you all at some point in your web exploits. This'll probably become several entries as the story unfolds but it's all from actual events in my experiences. For now, this is the first entry, which will be known as 'A Stalker is Born'

Early in my SL, I met someone who I spent a tremendous amount of my time with and to be kind, let's call her 'Babs'. Me and Babs met early on and had a close and intimate friendship from the start. From those first days, there was something she openly shared with me - the fact that she liked to find out about who the people behind the avatar were. It seemed somewhat harmless to me at the time, I was so flipping new to SL, it was just a ripple in a sea of new experiences.

Babs had a close girlfriend that left her. Claimed she left SL but Babs was convinced that she didn't really leave, she thought that they were ducking her and she proudly told me she could figure people out, she loved to search online for people and find them. She'd find them in SL and in RL if they were going to give her enough information. It didn't creep me out at all but there was a red flag when that girlfriend left. Babs was obsessed with finding her and find her she did, she searched and found a very similar avatar with a lot of the same info in her profile and caught her in places her old girlfriend would hang out and confronted her.

I tried being supportive and yet felt awkward the whole time this happened. It was hard enough being left in SL but then to track someone down, it just seemed to make it worse. She'd tell me her tactics on how she'd find her and then keep checking until she found another alt account that was started. This wasn't a one off experience either. Babs would search out anyone she was close to and would proudly tell me where the RL person was from, age, job, anything she could learn. That bothered me and I felt like this was a warning, not to give out personal information to someone, even someone I felt I could trust because nothing good would come of it. I didn't need random calls or letters or worse, a visit from a person from my SL unless I wanted it.

This continued with Babs as she met new people, it was always an inevitable story of how she'd learn about them and share it with me. Mostly I sat and listened and said 'oh really? Wow!' a lot. It just felt weird and sometimes, but not very often, I'd say 'do you have to look into who they are' and she brushed it off as harmless fun. The thought would creep into my head though, was she thinking about me and how much had she tried to find out?

Ontop of all this, she had this quid pro quo approach that made it easy for her to try to get info. She was open about who she was to those she got friendly with. Her first name was volunteered to me, then she shared where she lived and worked and even sent me her cell phone and finally gave me her full name and even her birthday. Shoot, I even had some video she shared of her from a program she had been on. The catch was 'well, what can I know about you?' and that scarred the f*ck out of me. From early on, my rules were clear - my first name and city I live in are pretty easy to share but beyond that - no way. I have never given out my actual birthday to anyone with accuracy. Sorry, being a target is harder when the details are vague.

Our friendship grew and as we became more exclusive with each other, her details about 'snooping' on people got quieter as we did more and more together. It sort of melted into the background but she had made it clear that she loved knowing about the people she met.

I'll pause before the end of this 'chapter' and just say that stalking is a weird thing. It's hard to exactly pin down but I define it as the activity someone takes which monitors and follows a person in an obsessive and unwanted fashion. It clearly is done in secret for the most part and has a socially unacceptable and creepy factor. The 'sniff test' on stalking to me is: If you were to tell the person you are following about the activities you're undertaking and they are uncomfortable, then it is potentially stalking.

So it was clear that I had fair warning about her and her behavior and chose to ignore it for the most part. I believed as long as we were close friends and lovers, it would overcome any of that. Yet, I was very wrong.

We became partners in June 2008 and our time together was the culmination of many months of close friendship. After a wonderful summer together, the fall gave way to things not working out well and by the time December of 2008 rolled around, we were splitting up as she had found someone new and I was replaced. It was a sudden change for me and surprised me how quickly I was out of so much of her life. The new girlfriend was very bossy and I got uncomfortable around her right away. Something didn't add up, I couldn't figure how Babs had met someone so fast and developed feelings as they both claimed. Even for SL it was fast and something was fishy. At that point, I did some detective work and learned a lot.