Online Stalking in General

Image taken from www.stalkershandbook.com

I now go on to explain briefly the story of WHY I had felt the need to share the rest of my story of Bob, and how he turned on me from being my friend, to my stalker. I share this, because it is not just my story - this sort of thing has been happening to other people as well, somtimes not to such extremes, sometimes even worse. I have come to conclude from my experiences that cyber bullies are indeed stalkers, who enjoy abusing their victims verbally and emotionally.

I have recently been helping a friend who is also being stalked online by someone who has displayed the similar aggressiveness and zeal as Bob. However, for the record, this stalker is NOT Bob; he is definitely someone else. I know who Bob is, and I know who this other person is, but due to privacy reasons, I will not reveal the name of my friend, or the name of her cyber-bully. If my friend wants to make herself known, she will......

Originally, my friend was friends with this stalker here in Flickr, until he had stolen one of her self-portraits from her photostream. When she confronted him about this, he deleted the photo from his photostream and apologized. He later on followed her in all of her groups, harrassing her and creating new Flickr accounts, which she ended up blocking.

Eventually, he ended up joining one of my groups that my friend was also a member of, and she sent me a private message warning me of this man's behaviour. I ended up deleting him and sent him a message explaining why he was deleted. He responded with the following:

"hello jemanden
i red your stupid message and i could not stop laughing .why ? because i was sure that i will receive the exact message from you . i know also that you are Princess's friend and of course you will do what she told you without any reason.i mean you trust her because she made you blind and you follow her as a little child!!. i don't need to belong to your facken group.I only tested you and i was right.If you were really wise you would not react as a stupid man. Sorry for telling you that ,but it's the truth my friend.Now you should wake up and be wise before you can juge any body.What happened to me with (your friend) is none of your business boy.Do you understand???"

I responded with:

"Actually... it is YOU who looks more like a fool than you realize. I might be young, but old enough to know better that blurting out accusations WITHOUT BACKING THEM UP is childish and immature, such as what you yourself have done.

I have looked at your photostream, and (my friend) was absolutely right. There are pictures there that even I myself have recognized, and you have not given credit to that original person's work. (My Friend's)' self-portrait was one of those, and the only reason why you deleted it is because she threatened legal action against you. I HAVE SEEN THIS, so I know for a FACT that you do indeed steal photos from other people. Your failure to tell me your side of the story is evidence to me that this is true.

You say that I am lead blindly by (My friend). How do you know this? My judgement of you is not only based by what she has told me, but also by YOUR OWN behaviour and actions. (My friend) has been a huge support to me these past couple of months, ESPECIALLY when I was having personal problems in dealing with people who behave just like you are behaving right now. I too have had to deal with an online stalker, who I have had to block multiple times, because he had created multiple accounts, just like you have done. When I confronted him about his strange behaviour before I started blocking him, he reacted the exact same way I did, accusing ME of being the silly one and being stupid.

You see, whenever online stalkers/bullies are exposed, they tend to react the exact same way, such has been my experiences online. They chuck "temper tantrums" at the person who has confronted them, and accuse THEM of being the ones who are childish. Your immature reaction to my giving you a chance to explain yourself proves to me that, like my online stalker, you cannot deny that what has been said is true, and the only way you can defend yourself is by throwing insults at the people who have confronted you. It is interesting how you accuse me of behaving as a little child, when I had tried to be diplomatic by giving you a chance to explain your side of the story via email, and you come up with such a childish email.....

This behaviour, as well as seeing the stolen photos from other people in your photostream, does not give me any reason to disbelieve (my friend). It is not her words that have influenced my decision. Rather, it has a LOT to do with how I see YOU interact on Flickr. Your response to my email only further confirms that my decision is correct....

...Seeing as I have given you the chance to explain yourself, and and used that chance up by writing such an immature email, I am now going to block you, as I can see that you are not capable of responding in a mature and diplomatic manner, nor is your character any good....

From was_bedeutet_jemanden"

Since then, I believe my friend has not heard anything new from this guy, so I guess he has moved on to, but not entirely lost in cyber space. Like Bob, I know he's still around too.....

What was interesting about this experience was how all my feelings towards Bob and what he did ended up coming flooding back to me when I was helping my friend deal with her problem. Feelings that I had thought I had definitely left behind, but yet a twinge of hurt was still there. Like my friend, I was betrayed by someone who I let in as a friend, someone who turned out to be a monster.

It was because of this experience that I decided to tell the rest of my story, as originally I had planned on not sharing it at all. Now that I have seen what my friend had gone through, I could see that not only the other part of my story would not only help me to deal with the hurt I feel, but also help others realize that my experience is not uncommon, that there are others out there on Flickr and other social websites that have experienced similar things, and it is important to share those experiences and explain how you overcame those trials. This was the whole purpose of why this group was organized to begin with.

In short, I hope that this group will continue to be a source of help to those who want to learn more about how to best deal with online predators, and I hope that we can all come to learn from each others' experiences.

(In case any of you were wondering, I did ask permission from my friend first before telling her story)....