I Have a Stalker! What Fun!

I have a stalker.

Actually I have more than one.

These are online stalkers.

And dang, it’s like a real life episode of NCIS or Criminal Minds.

And maybe I’m late to the party and everyone has a stalker.

I mean it’s almost fashionable these days for someone to follow your digital footprint.

Digital footprint?

Yeah.

Jeremiah Johnson is so yesterday.

But damn he was good looking, right?

In my book Facebreak, I interviewed a real online stalker.

Her identity was Catarina27.

And I am Mr. Magoo.

I asked her all the questions like a bulldog Mike Wallace would on 60 Minutes.

Fucking fascinating.

I never paid it much attention after that because you can’t get too worried about what Ingrid or Eric does from their laptop in Austria or in Budapest.

Or right in your own hometown.

I know, right?!

Now understand, I’m not just talking about an avid follower or friend.

Believe it or not they have one or both of those characteristics.

But they have this…what’s the word I’m looking for…

...obsession…(that’s the word!) to know another layer deeper about my love life.

Where is Nancy Drew when you need her?!

Colombo? KoJak? Jethro Gibbs?

Actually, if you’ve read my book Facebreak or my recent book Marriage Merriment and Madness, or any of my articles you know that I know people telepath their intentions before they ring your doorbell.

And the wild and crazy thing is these stalkers of mine think that I don’t know!

I Learned a lot from Colombo:

You know when Colombo would ask questions of a suspect and we were watching his genius at work when his probing questions would begin to rattle the suspect slightly?

And we were watching this from our living room couch yelling out:

“It’s her! It’s her! She killed him!”

I mean the tension was palpable.

And then Colombo scribbles in his tiny notepad, thanks her, and walks away.

We were like Nooooooo!!!

But then Colombo hesitates, turns around and comes back.

He flips open that tiny notepad and asks her one more question.

Our adrenaline would spike.

Our attention was riveted.

"Just one more question Mrs Strasberg. When you left the dentist office around 2:15 what did you do until attending your daughter’s soccer game at 3:30?”

Dagger question!!!

We yell out to no one on our living room:

"She killed him! She killed her dentist!!!"

In that nearly infinitesimally tiny fraction of time he asks the question, and her almost imperceptible and inaudible gasp and made up answer, we know Columbo knows.

Because even though you and I leave digital footprints the blind could follow, the stalker cannot wipe their own footprints down like wiping down the murder weapon.

Fortunately I’ve learned to keep a rather insouciant frame of mind about all this.

Because in casual conversations I’ll be talking to a friend and they will inadvertently slip.

They ask me a question they couldn’t possibly have posed unless they had been through my digital nightstand.

It’s her!!! Its her!! my Colombo mind races.

Where’s my fucking notepad?!

I admit it.

I’m an adrenaline junkie!

Listen: I am quite sure my stalkers are reading this which is just too fun.

But you know this society has blurred way too many lines that involve right and wrong and gender and the whole moral compass is now a debate.

There’s nothing debatable about a compass.

It’s why it’s a compass for heaven’s sake.

And there’s nothing illegal about stalking.

But there’s something morally amiss if you are obsessed with following my digital footprints in order to discover some juicy tidbit about my love life. 

I mean I learned one thing from Colombo.

I take really good notes.

“Thank you, Mrs. Strasberg. That’s all the questions I have right now...

...If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

Dave Worthen

Author. Consultant. International Speaker.