Types of Stalkers
[W]e have broken down types of stalkers into three broad categories: Intimate partner stalkers, delusional stalkers and vengeful stalkers. Obviously, there is overlap.
Intimate partner stalkers are typically known as the guy who “just can’t let go.” These are most often men who refuse to believe that a relationship has really ended…
In these types of stalking cases, the victim may, in fact, unwittingly encourage the stalker by trying to “let him down easy,” or agreeing to talk to him “just one more time.” What victims need to understand is that there is no reasoning with stalkers. Just the fact that stalking - an unreasonable activity - has already begun, illustrates this fact…
Delusional stalkers frequently have had little, if any, contact with their victims…
Another type of delusional stalker might believe that he is destined to be with someone, and that if he only pursues her hard enough and long enough…
The final category of stalker is not lovelorn. He is the vengeful stalker. These stalkers become angry with their victims over some slight, real or imagined. Politicians, for example, get many of these types of stalkers…
Some of these angry stalkers are psychopaths, i.e. people without conscience or remorse. Some are delusional, (most often paranoid), and believe that they, in fact, are the victims. They all stalk to “get even.”
Common Traits of Stalkers
Stalkers will not take no for an answer.
They refuse to believe that a victim is not interested in them or will not rekindle their relationship…
Stalkers display an obsessive personality.
They are not just interested in, but totally obsessed with the person they are pursuing. Their every waking thought centers on the victim, and every plan the stalker has for the future involves the victim…
Stalkers are above average in intelligence and are usually smarter than the run of the mill person with mental problems.
They have been known… even to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars to gain information about or find their victims…
Most stalkers don’t have any relationship outside the one they are trying to re-establish or the one they have imagined exists between them and their victim.
Because they are usually loners, stalkers become desperate to obtain this relationship…
Stalkers don’t display the discomfort or anxiety that people should naturally feel in certain situations.
Normal individuals would be extremely embarrassed to be caught following other people… leaving obscene notes, and other inappropriate behavior displayed by stalkers…
Stalkers often suffer from low self-esteem, and feel they must have a relationship with the victim in order to have any self worth.
Preoccupations with other people almost always involve someone with weak social skills and low self-esteem…
Few stalkers can see how their actions are hurting others.
They display other sociopathic thinking in that they cannot learn from experience, and they don’t believe society’s rules apply to them.
Most stalkers don’t think they’re really threatening, intimidating, or even stalking someone else…
Stalkers many times have a mean streak and will become violent when frustrated. How violent? Often deadly.