Stalking you

He used to find me on a particular website -- and would implore me to meet him for a tryst,  place to be determined.

Trust me, I didn't know this man from Adam.

But he thought that he knew me.

Even after having blocked him, I still felt violated.

Another guy would have software that told him when I signed on -- and immediately his icon would pop up, demanding my attention.

And then there is someone's girlfriend -- unable to find me on Facebook, she seems to have resorted to other means to make sure that I'm not in communication with an old friend.

She's not the first.

View my twisted grin.

For the purposes of comparison and naked curiosity, I've checked out the girlfriend's Facebook feed a few times -- but she didn't keep me guessing, so I moved on.

Cyber-stalking.

Many of us do it. Some of us have personal issues that need to be addressed in real time, with real people.

Most of us are just fascinated by other people's revelations.  We look at feeds or profiles the way, in the old days, folks used to read the gossip columns in newspapers (and some of us are old enough to REMEMBER the old days).

I'm not sure how healthy cyber-stalking is, however. Sometimes it keeps us stuck on old loves, or mired in new fantasies.

Sometimes it creates more anxiety.  But perhaps the anxiety was there already. I can imagine lovers, who say they trust one another, stoking the fires of jealousy, when there is nothing of which to be afraid.

Often, it can reawaken grief.

I'm not sure all of this access does us that much good as evolving human beings.

At best, the ability to check up on one another is a tool.

At worst, it is torture.

I never was much for torture.

How about you, darling?