
I’ve Had a Cyberstalker Since I Was 12 (2016) - rbanffy
https://www.wired.com/2016/02/ive-had-a-cyberstalker-since-i-was-12/?mbid=social_tw_backchannel
======
vmp
This article hit close to home, albeit my contact with a cyberstalker was
(thank god) very brief it was a nerve-wrecking experience, to which end I
panicked and deleted a lot of accounts and profiles in an attempt to make it
harder to track my online activity. I was scared the stalking and harassment
would become more personal, "leaking" in to the real world -- but it
thankfully did not.

A lot of the (non-technical) internet users probably don't know how easy it
can be to link an online identity to your person, be it through handle
(nickname) re-use or simply having a pattern of likes and dislikes or hanging
out with the wrong crowd. Once the connection is made you have nothing left to
shield yourself with and will have to, like the person in this article, deal
with it on a daily basis.

I've since grown up a little, grown a thicker hide and conquered my paranoia
to a degree thanks to therapy, and have started to comment and share online
again but the fear of coming across the wrong person with too much time on
their hands still feels chilling to me.

Garry Newman (the guy behind "Garrys Mod" and "Rust" (game)) published[1] a
rather interesting chain of emails, a peek in to the mind of his stalker.

[1] [https://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-
part-1/](https://garry.tv/2015/11/10/stalkers-and-abuse-part-1/)

------
colanderman
If anyone from Facebook is reading this and wants to help, ALLOW USERS TO HIDE
PRESENCE.

As-is, any time you log into Facebook, anyone who is friends with you can see
that you are active in the Messenger bar on the right-hand side ( _even if you
have chat disabled_ ). This gives stalkers (who, as the article explains, are
sometimes best not blocked) an excuse to message you, to which a victim will
feel pressured to respond. This makes Facebook a very unpleasant place to be.

I personally have written a Chrome extension to hide my presence. Facebook,
please ALLOW USERS TO HIDE PRESENCE if you want to make a positive impact
against stalking.

~~~
NightlyDev
Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not
even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the
complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can
happen.

If you don't want a person to see that you are online, just remove the
person..or even better, don't add the person in the first place. If you join a
service made for sharing personal data you should at least think about the
consequences.

~~~
King-Aaron
> Facebook is not the problem, users are. Back in the day most users would not
> even share their name on the internet and now most people are doing the
> complete opposite: They share way to much without thinking about what can
> happen.

Facebook is indeed a major part of the problem which you just described. They
hold a 'real name' policy, and have well-crafted call to actions which
pressure people into feeling obliged to share information. The entire service
is designed to mine data from you, which is a bonus for a stalker.

Though I don't feel your suggestions - 'just removing or never adding them in
the first place' \- is a bit moot when the author has described exactly why
the person is on their list..

~~~
manquer
Well facebook is the biggest stalker of them all. It is only natural they will
have features enabling stalking

------
Mz
The top ranked comment in the previous discussion* talks about women putting
up with too much because they don't want to seem rude. I will suggest this is
a societal problem. Women get a lot of social pressure to "be nice."

Just leaving this here as a kind of PSA:
[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/not-
really-r...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/not-really-
rude.html)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207891)

~~~
kstenerud
It's a genetic problem. Women are hardwired to smile more in front of people,
even if they're unhappy ( _1). They 're more polite, right from the moment
they begin to speak (_2). They try much harder than men to avoid conflict (
_3).

_ 1 Cole - Children's spontaneous control of facial expressions - Child
Development (1986), Saarni - An observational study of children's attempts to
monitor their expressive behavior - Child Development (1984)

 _2 Politeness: Some universals in language usage (1987), Leaper and Ayres: A
meta-analytic review of gender variations in adults ' language use,
Personality and Psychology Review (2007)

_3 Campbell - Staying Alive: Evolution, culture, and women's intrasexual
aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1999)

~~~
Sleeep
What? How on Earth do you know that "women are hardwired to smile more"
instead of "women are culturally conditioned to smile more." Considering women
are told to smile by _complete strangers on the street_ you can't just go
ahead and disregard cultural conditioning.

[https://news.yale.edu/2003/03/18/women-smile-more-men-
differ...](https://news.yale.edu/2003/03/18/women-smile-more-men-differences-
disappear-when-they-are-same-role-yale-researcher-finds)

~~~
bacondude3
> Considering women are told to smile by complete strangers on the street you
> can't just go ahead and disregard cultural conditioning.

As a dude, I get told to smile pretty frequently. I don't think this has
anything to do with sex most of the time (though there are sexists, obvs).

------
jancsika
> The lawyer had apologized for his client’s behavior and asked that we notify
> him if Danny ever attempted to contact me or anyone connected to me in the
> future.

So what happened?

Did the author's father verify this was indeed a real lawyer?

Did the author contact her own lawyer to help figure out what circumstances
could result in a cyberstalker's lawyer saying this to her father?

I don't understand how an article on a first-person account of cyberstalking
could possibly end with, "something extraordinary happened that I won't
explain further and perhaps that will wrap things up."

~~~
jwilk
> I don't understand how an article on a first-person account of cyberstalking
> could possibly end with, "something extraordinary happened

Because this is what happened so far.

> that I won't explain further

You can't explain things you don't understand. The article says:

 _I emailed the lawyer back, but due to attorney-client privilege he wouldn’t
reveal the nature of his representation of Danny. I assumed, however, that he
was being sued by another victim._

> and perhaps that will wrap things up."

Yes.

~~~
jancsika
> You can't explain things you don't understand.

But you _can_ follow up on them, especially in an article where the first-
person account is part of a larger story about cyberstalking.

E.g., "We then contacted a lawyer who specializes in stalking, who told us
that..."

E.g., "I emailed the professor mentioned earlier in the article to find out if
criminal/civil settlements ever result in such an arrangement in cyberstalking
cases."

Or, "While the lawyer couldn't reveal the nature of his relationship with
Danny, I _certainly_ was under no such obligation. We hired a private
investigator to go through the records I had kept of the cyberstalking and
harassment, to try to piece together who other potential victims may have
been."

If this were a blog I wouldn't have commented at all. I can understand if the
author took the call from the lawyer as a potential signal that the harassment
was over and wishes to devote 0 more time going forward to dealing with this
person. But it's not a blog-- it's a journalistic story about a person using
every legal avenue available to stop the harmful behavior of an abuser that
spanned decades, and how every single avenue fell short of stopping the abuse.
That story is frustratingly incomplete because we don't know what it is that
actually put a stop to the abuse, and it appears nobody took further steps to
explain it.

Edit: added word "journalistic" for clarification

~~~
danso
The story's focus is about how frustrating and bewildering it can be to deal
with cyberharassment, not to detail the complete drama of this incident.

~~~
jancsika
I'm not interested at all in the drama of the incident.

I'm interested in what steps were necessary to force a lifetime harasser to
find a lawyer and a) agree to provide that lawyer with at least a partial list
of victims of his online attacks, and b) also agree to allow the lawyer to
contact the family of those victims and request a response if the lifetime
harasser ever tries to contact the victim again.

------
ghufran_syed
I feel a lot of sympathy for the author. Would it be correct to infer from
this article that the appropriate response after ("make no contact with them"
and "keep records" should be: 1) Talk to lawyer 2) Get restraining order
(useful info here[1]),

possibly preceded by 0) hire private investigator to find stalker's actual
identity

[1]
[http://www.womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=90#2](http://www.womenslaw.org/simple.php?sitemap_id=90#2)

anyone with experience of how effective (or not) this might be?

~~~
Mz
That is extremely unlikely to be effective. People like Danny tend to be good
at doing things that are hard to prosecute. Lawyers, restraining orders and
reports to the authorities wind up sucking away more of the victims life
while, in most cases, getting them no remedy and simply making it clear to
them that there is no remedy within the rule of law. It often just deepens
their frustration, sense of helplessness and sense of being victimized.

Victims usually are not good at figuring out how to effectively manage the
situation via other means. If they are, well, they don't write articles like
this.

~~~
mirimir
Why limit responses to seeking help from "authorities"? She knows the
stalker's identity. Why not shame him, in his network? Could she be too polite
for that? That would be sad.

~~~
Mz
As I said:

 _Victims usually are not good at figuring out how to effectively manage the
situation via other means. If they are, well, they don 't write articles like
this._

I will posit that most stalkers fit the profile of a sociopath. Most of their
victims probably do not. Trying to figure out how to think enough like a
sociopath to outwit them if you, yourself, are not innately wired that way can
be distasteful. But, if you don't, your efforts to manage the situation wind
up either ineffectual or backfiring or both.

In this article, it says she did things like told him to stop sending so many
messages or she would block him. When he didn't do as she asked, she blocked
him. The result: It just made things worse.

This seems to be the usual pattern. The victim often tries tactics that just
deepen the problem.

It gets to a point where politeness has nothing to do with it. If everything
you try just makes the problem worse, trying to just not antagonize the creep
can seem like the least worst option possible.

~~~
mirimir
I don't see that self-defense is at all sociopathic. Shaming an attacker in
their social network seems equivalent to screaming "HELP!" when attacked in
meatspace.

But yes, I get that some people are socialized in counterproductive ways.
Maybe there's a market for enforcement services to help such victims.
Reputable providers would, of course, verify claims of potential clients. On
the other hand, IANAL. And there might well be liability for defamation.

~~~
Mz
You sound like you are tossing out hypotheses without firsthand experience.
Let me suggest you don't really understand the problem space. Tossing out
solutions without understanding the problem tends to be counterproductive.

~~~
mirimir
I have been stalked. On Usenet. For about a year. By one of the old-school
notorious trolls. So I obtained the entire newsgroup, parsed it into a SQL
database, and found his IP address. Years ago, it turned out, he didn't use
proxies. Also, using semantic analysis, I identified other personas. So I let
him know, and he left Usenet.

~~~
Mz
This might have been a more productive discussion if you had started with that
anecdote and then tried to assert or ask whatever it is you are trying to
assert or ask. It looks to me like you are saying "Well, I was able to handle
it myself, so she is just a loser that she couldn't."

I frequently try to talk about what women and other oppressed groups can do
differently. I am routinely accused of _victim blaming_ because of it, so I am
aware that this is a hard thing to talk about effectively. But some of the
problems here are:

1) If you are male and she is female, she may do the exact same things you did
and not the get the results you got.

2) It sounds like you were probably an adult when you ran into this issue. She
was just 12 when she met Danny.

3) She had known him a lot of years before it became apparent that he was a
problem.

There are no doubt other problems with it. If you want to talk about better
approaches and what targets of stalkers can do differently, I am up for that.
But I am not really interested in "agreeing" that because you solved it
yourself, she just must not have tried hard enough or something.

The reality is that while some responses to such people or situations tend to
be more effective than others, if someone decides to target you, you may be
unable to dissuade them from continuing to do so. In many cases, stalkers do
not stop until they are dead. To take that to its logical conclusion, if you
are being harassed by a serious nutcase, it may be a situation where killing
them is the only real way to put a stop to their behavior. And if you do so,
the odds are really high you will go to jail. Most people would rather just
keep trying to avoid the lunatic than go to jail.

Furthermore, abusive husbands who finally beat their wife to death do less
prison time on average than abused wives who finally defended themselves with
lethal force. Part of the reason for this is that men tend to have both a size
and strength advantage over women, and it is also not uncommon for them to
have an advantage of skill from having taken martial arts or served in the
military. So, women very often need to pick up an equalizer and preplan it to
have any hope of successively winning the battle. Thus, abusive men are very
often charged with manslaughter and their victims are very often charged with
premeditated murder in cold blood.

Thus, if you are a woman and some man decides to victimize you, you may find
yourself in a situation that is simply shitty as hell no matter how you choose
to handle it.

That fact needs to be acknowledged up front before talking about "well, what
can the victim do to try to de-escalate such things before they become so
entrenched?" And you seem to be in a head space where you think the victim can
just do a thing and magically make it go away. This is often not the case at
all, even if they are really savvy about handling shitty social situations.

~~~
mirimir
Thanks for the thoughtful and persuasive reply. You're right, I'm male. And I
was an adult (at least chronologically). However, although we were both just
anonymous cowards on Usenet, I had "known" him for years, when this started.
Basically, I stood up for others that he was attacking, and that pissed him
off.

> It looks to me like you are saying "Well, I was able to handle it myself, so
> she is just a loser that she couldn't."

Sorry if it comes off that way. I did manage to handle it. But it took months
of tedious work. Yet I didn't mind, because I was extremely angry about it.
And I knew that I was learning stuff that would be useful later.

I'm not saying that she's a loser. I'm saying that she was socialized to be
nice. To find aggression distasteful, as you said. I do strive to be peaceful,
and I seek peaceful friends. But unfortunately, entirely nonviolent and
peaceful people can end up as victims.

So what can victims do? Going to authorities doesn't seem to work very well.
Filing a lawsuit, as Hatena did against Hill, is expensive. That's why I
floated the idea of private enforcement. Rather like PIs that take direct
action against attackers. Instead of doxxing attackers personally, as
puellavulnerata and I did, victims could hire consultants to manage it.

To avoid liability, there could be "Assassination Politics" type services.
Attackers typically have multiple victims, so there would be multiple
contributors. Who would, of course, be kept anonymous. The front end could be
an easy-to-use app. And the service would be compartmentalized, with staff who
verify allegations being fully anonymous, and firewalled fully from anonymous
staff who handle action against attackers.

> To take that to its logical conclusion, if you are being harassed by a
> serious nutcase, it may be a situation where killing them is the only real
> way to put a stop to their behavior.

Well, the first draft of my first post in this thread did include a sentence
about having a group of friends with baseball bats pay this jerk a visit ;)
But arguably, measures well short of death will stop most stalkers. Shaming to
family and friends often does it. Or trashing their career, as puellavulnerata
did. My stalker was a well-respected academic, and he was utterly freaked when
I confronted him at his university email address.

~~~
Mz
_So what can victims do?_

I posted a link elsewhere in this thread suggesting that women need to learn
to give pushback sooner rather than later. That is in the category of trying
to not let yourself become a victim to begin with.

If you do become the target of something like this, well, it gets a lot more
complicated. Your idea about shaming to family and friends is not necessarily
effective. In the past, I have been moderately harassed online by a man who
alternated between verbally feeling me up and verbally assaulting me. Any time
he verbally felt me up, his girlfriend would attack me in some other
discussion on the same forum. I complained to the mods. They saw no reason to
intercede on my behalf.

Horrible people often have friends who are either horrible themselves or
basically a good pawn. It is not unusual for a romantic interest to treat the
object of desire as if they are intentionally being temptresses. There are
complex reasons behind that.

But, yes, contacting them at work or implying/threatening that you will make
it public in a way that materially harms them can be useful. If it is ugly
enough, making it clear that you understand you can't win, but you can make
them lose harder can be a useful way to get some breathing room.

But all of that requires you to understand what they want from you in specific
and from life in general. Victims are often emotionally warm people with a lot
of empathy. Coming to terms with how cold hearted, callous, manipulative,
uncaring horribly assholes stalkers really are is an uncomfortable process for
such people. Some of them will fail to get it through their thick skull
because they would literally rather believe the world is a nice place and
people are really good at heart than to let their delusions of that sort be
destroyed by coming to terms with the truth of their situation.

And that is probably a rather muddled, hand-wavy comment. My heart isn't
really in this discussion today.

Best.

~~~
mirimir
> Victims are often emotionally warm people with a lot of empathy. Coming to
> terms with how cold hearted, callous, manipulative, uncaring horribly
> assholes stalkers really are is an uncomfortable process for such people.

I can only vaguely imagine that. I mean, I'm friendly and empathic enough. But
I also have a short temper, and tend toward keeping grudges.

And about stalkers. They aren't necessarily cold hearted, callous,
manipulative, and uncaring. Sometimes they're just unconsciously selfish and
childish. I know because I've been there. I lusted for a close friend, for
years. But she just wasn't interested. And yet, we apparently remained friends
through it all. Later, I learned that her thesis adviser was harassing her
sexually. And I got that I'd been a jerk, to not see it, and to be another
problem for her.

------
Pica_soO
Those great data gatherers have quite a stalker-tone to there messages and
notifications themselves, harassing users for data. If i read those
notifications, wanting data from me, the voice i imagine is usually the
"rapist-in-the-dark-alley"-voice of movie trophe fame. "I ve noticed you today
visited the bakery. I like cake too- just tell me more. Shall i tell your
friends, you like cakes? You better reply, i can repeat this a thousand
times.."

Regarding human stalkers.

What to do.. mmh.. how about building a trojan-persona? You hook NN-Chatbots
behind all your profiles on your online persona- ready to speak even with the
stalk and sneak out in the middle of the night? You tell your friends in
person about your new low_profile and that stalker is off chasing maschinery.

------
sctb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11207626)

------
Rjevski
I had a similar issue due to a bad encounter on a forum when I was younger -
had to keep a low profile on the Internet for several years since then and had
to frequently delete my online profiles out of fear. This wasn't just one
stalker though, he has "friends" and from what I heard recently while the
original stalker has lost interest his friends still hate me just as much.

------
wvh
I feel for the person, but I'm not sure what the police can do if somebody
stalks without committing a clear offence, just like the case where somebody
might be a terrorist but hasn't committed any act of terrorism yet. You can't
throw somebody in jail for being annoying. Though perhaps the person could be
forced into therapy if there are multiple reports from multiple people about
aberrant and problematic behaviour... That could be something the law should
look into.

No victim blaming here, but be clear and confront the guy. I guess making
beyond shadow of a doubt clear that you don't ever want to hear from him again
under any terms is about the only thing you can legally do. Wishy-washy
communication is in my opinion really the wrong way to deal with pushy men.
The slightest wavering means "yes" to some guys.

~~~
DanBC
> No victim blaming here, but be clear and confront the guy

Stalking is very common. Rarely stalkers will murder their victims. It's not
easy to tell the difference between the annoying but not murdering stalkers
and the murdering stalkers.

So confronting them carries a small but real risk of severe harm.

There's also not much evidence that confrontation works to stop stalking.

> The slightest wavering means "yes" to some guys.

This is incorrect. To these people anything will be twisted into "yes".

"I don't want you to contact me again. If you make any further contact I will
contact the police, and you will be in violation of the court order I have
against you" will be interpreted to fit the delusion, perhaps "in truth she
still loves me, and wants to be with me, but her husband has manipulated her
into saying this stuff."

Tldr ratioanilty doesn't work with irrational people.

------
NightlyDev
This stuff sucks, but based on own experience the best thing to do is to never
give the person any attention at all.

Most people these days are completley blind to the possible consequences of
sharing personal data with others.

It seems like most people used to be very careful with sharing personal
information online, but in the last 15 years many people have clearly
forgotten about common sense.

2000: It's the internet, it's dangerous to put your name there. 2017: I have
to share a bunch of photos of myself(so people have something to edit), lists
of all my connections(so people knows who to contact), my current location(so
people knows where to find me) and I need to have 25 open communication
channels. Oh, and it should be available to more or less everyone.

Last week I actually heard a person complaining about a stalker messaging her
on facebook, blocking didn't help as he just created a knew account. I guess
most of the users here sees a simple solution, but most people have no idea
what they are doing online.

~~~
isostatic
Back in 1990 we not only put our real name, but sometimes our address, phone,
etc online, either in usenet sigs which are still available, or at the very
least in finger

~~~
sevensor
Back in 1980, they used to publish books full of this stuff and put it next to
public telephones!

------
phkahler
The ads on this page are almost intolerable. The page keeps jumping up and
down. Normally I leave sites that do that, but the story here is interesting
enough that I'm suffering through it.

~~~
bashinator
Reader view in Firefox wants to be your friend.

------
libeclipse
But what happens next? Was there an update to this sequence of events?

------
hypertexthero
The Psychopath Code — “Practical tools and techniques to survive the most
difficult people” —
[http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths](http://hintjens.com/blog:_psychopaths)

------
throwaway7q8Y2C
I have personal experience defending against a stalker. Questions were asked
down-thread about the effectiveness of restraining orders, so I'm posting in
response. I got away, and I find the slight chance that this helps someone
else compelling. Also, I can't really talk about this in real life, so I wish
other people could know that it can happen, and how it works.

TLDR answer is: To defend against a stalker you will likely need legal advice
and representation.

This is distasteful and expensive, and judgment is required to decide when to
take that step. I am not a litigious person, and generally prefer to avoid
conflict, or negotiate reasonable solutions. A stalker will take advantage of
this. Stalkers (at least mine) operate by asserting control gradually, and
retaliating against your attempts at self defense in a tit-for-tat fashion.

I think it likely that if you have even considered seeking legal redress, it's
probably already time to hire an attorney. The cost and risk of civil cases or
lawsuits is generally much smaller then the cost/risk of potentially getting
involved in a criminal case later, so if you can solve the problem in civil
court, it is highly desirable to do so.

The police may arrest and charge one (or both) of you if they respond to an in
progress assault. However, they will not want to evaluate contradictory
factual claims made by you and the stalker about things that happened while
they weren't there. When you ask for help, they will probably encourage you to
obtain a restraining order, which makes the problem someone else's job for
now, and sets at least a low bar for complainants, before the police have to
get involved.

Your legal position in the future will be constrained by early decisions and
statements that you make. The article describes this question from a police
officer: “'Were you ever afraid for your life?' he asked, still apparently on
my side."

In my state, fear of one's life or safety was a legal requirement for
obtaining an ex parte domestic violence civil restraining order. Think very
carefully in advance about how to answer questions like this and don't ever
lie to anyone or change your story. Lawyers are required to tell a judge if
you do, and you will also need to protect your reputation with people you know
against claims made by the stalker. Your only advantage over the stalker is
truthfulness and consistency.

A civil restraining (or "protective") order is issued by a civil court which
orders one party to stay away from another, possibly along with other
provisions . Ex parte means "without the other party's presence." Some states
(including mine at the time) allow such an order to be issued without an
adversarial hearing. You obtain this by: going to court clerks office and
submitting the paperwork they give you. Soon, (because this is presumed to be
an emergency) you are given a short hearing in which you must explain why you
are afraid for your life, and what's happed so far. If the judge grants the
order, the respondent will be served a paper copy of the order by an officer,
who will explain to the respondent that it's a crime to approach or bother you
while the order is in force. These orders are short (mine was 21 days) because
the respondent is not allowed an advance adversarial hearing.

After being served, my stalker retaliated by obtained an ex parte restraining
order against me. I have come to understand that this is not uncommon in
states where reciprocal orders are allowed. Eventually, after some stalling, I
was granted a hearing and that order was dismissed at my request. Ultimately,
after many further hearings over the course of about a year, I was granted a
long term civil restraining order. During the litigation I dropped my college
courses, resigned from my internship, and finally transfered to a university
in another town. I did this partly because it was advised by my attorney, but
mainly because I wanted to move on with my life.

It was also my experience that other people tended to trivialize the problem.
It was hard for some people to understand that simply ignoring the stalker
would not make it possible for me to attend work, or class, or use public
spaces. My stalker would wait for me outside of my school and workplace, hold
the doors shut, and threaten to report an assault if I tried to get in. They
would also follow me in public or into businesses and create disruptions by
yelling, making false reports to police or security, or other authority
figures. The goal seemed to be to deny access to a space and/or provoke a
physical altercation so I could be charged with assault.

I got out of this for a few thousand in attorney fees (plus a year of my
life), and was never injured or charged with a crime. If I had not hired an
attorney, I think there is a chance I would have been injured, killed or
imprisoned. There were some peculiar features of my case that probably make it
exceptional, so I'm not sure how well my advice generalizes, but this is it:
Don't engage with the legal system without a lawyer, and don't wait to start
defending yourself.

------
cgb223
I've gone ahead and deleted this comment for privacy reasons.

Thanks for reading it.

~~~
zoomo
Although stalking can be done by any gender, it does seem that obsessive
behaviour and social maladjustment are more masculine traits in general.

That's not to detract from your suffering - I am sorry to hear of your
terrible experience at the hands of this creepy, awful woman. I hope you get
this resolved somehow.

~~~
Mz
Or maybe it is just more socially acceptable for men, so they make less effort
to hide it and are more willing to turn it outward rather than inward.

At this time, we cannot possibly separate out what is the result of biological
wiring and what is the result of how people are socialized. There seems to be
some evidence that as women gain power and social status and so forth, they
start exhibiting some of the same negative traits that are deemed to be
stereotypically male.

It may not be that women are more virtuous. It may just be that women get
enormously more social pressure to curb certain tendencies, or at least hide
them.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
There is a clear correlation between aggression and testosterone levels[1].
People who take steroids are more likely to be violent[2]. Men have more
testosterone, and thus act different overall. I'm not saying culture doesn't
play a role, but try not to underplay biological differences between men and
women overall, because they are definite.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggression#Testosterone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggression#Testosterone)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#roid_rage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid#roid_rage)

~~~
Mz
Saying that we can't currently separate it out is not the same as saying
biology has no effect.

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bobsgame
I think that males have sort of an instinctual way of thinking which is often
reinforced in the media that persistence and commitment are "romantic" which
women secretly desire, and that they often "play hard to get," etc. There are
certainly many cases where this is true but probably much more commonly not. I
can see how this combined with wishful thinking, general emotional confusion,
lack of information, self esteem issues, etc can lead to these sort of
situations.

I definitely don't think the woman owes him an answer or anything else of
course, but I do think that women have a different perspective than men in
general where they often have many more suitors and don't really understand
the male experience that well. From the perspective of a man who has few
prospects who takes every interaction as being meaningful, being abruptly
blocked by someone with no explanation seems very rude and personal, but to
the woman doing the blocking it might simply be the most convenient and
reasonable way to deal with being approached quite often. It wasn't until I
became platonic friends with women that I realized just how much more popular
they are on dating sites, etc.

~~~
groby_b
That reading may possibly, maybe have made sense in the early stages. Like
when they were 12. But at some point she literally told him "stop messaging me
so much or I'll block you". And even before that, he's _well_ outside of
societal norms.

The guy then switches to insults and threats. Going from there and explaining
it away with "oh, poor guy, might have felt rude and personal to him" is quite
the stretch.

The guy is an active stalker. Let's stop making excuses for _horrible_
behavior. He's not "confused". He's malicious. He's threatening. He's trying
to destroy her livelihood.

It's not women "having a different perspective than men", it's men like you
continuing to make excuse after excuse for men who behave like sociopaths.

~~~
booleandilemma
This.

"Danny" is obviously mentally disturbed and should not represent the rest of
the male population.

Normal men do not act like Danny.

~~~
s73ver
I'm really beginning to doubt the idea that people who act like this are
mentally disturbed. I think they're just shitheads.

~~~
ptenk
Mentally disturbed could mean sociopathic, which is likely the case here.

