Myspace stalking and the EX factor

by Charlotte Kimberley

It has been statisically proven that rejected women are more likely to engage in stalker-like behaviour than rejected men. The problem is, says Charlotte Kimberley, that women are hard-wired to need confrontation and resolution when a relationship breaks down, and men and women have a very different take on the meaning of 'desire'...

Man-mystifications are, as any girl will tell you, an integral part of our lives. The one question I'm sure we'd all agree on asking God, or a genie in a lamp - whoever it is that grants wishes these days - it's this: could they please give us women the ability to understand what was going on in a man's head? The world would be a safer place because of it. And by safe, I mean safer for men, who are less likely to suffer at the hands of confused rampaging ex-girlfrieds. There are women who split up from their boyfriends who go insane. I know, because I was one of them.

Now my sanity was questionable in the first instance, but for those of you out there who've been dumped and watched their lovers morph into someone from another planet (Mars, I believe) then this is for you.

Stalking I've witnessed

Katie felt herself losing the plot when she became involved with Max who had a girlfriend. They flirted throughout the office over a series of months and she felt certain he'd leave his girlfriend, especially when they started enjoying intimate shag fests in the office late at night, in hotels of a weekend and sometimes in one another's flats. All of a sudden, Max called time on their relationship.

'I just didn't know what to do,' she says, visibly remembering the emotions felt.

'I don't know if it was my pride that had taken a kicking, or what, but all I knew was that I just had this overriding desire to have him and nothing and no-one could stand in my way.'

'I found myself parking my car outside his house, and waiting for him to return. I'd also 'turn up' where I knew he'd be, just to see him.'

Needless to say Max called the police on Katie and they had a gentle chat with her to remind her that actions such as these were regarded as stalking.

'I felt like what I was doing wasn't stalking, I was just trying to talk to him - now I realise I was borderline obsessive and have made a pact with myself never to let my desire overrule what should be just one of them things - the ending of a relationship.'

But it's hard. What may sound completely stir-crazy from the point of view of an outsider looking in makes complete sense to the person themselves when their emotional pain kicks in. Understanding why a relationship has come to an end is often the key to unlocking many women's erratic psychopathic behaviour. Us girls are emotional creatures and often we just need to be told exactly how it is so we can voice our concerns accordingly - lay things to rest so that everything is clear in our minds. My story was somewhat different, but none the less, I still found myself unable to let go for nearly five whole months. Eek!

Stalking I've done myself

Joe came into my life like a whirlwind of emotions - lust, desire and eventually, love. We spent an idyllic 11 months together, roaming fields, skipping through flowers, picking out names for the children we were going to bear... no, I'm joking. We had perhaps, a few weeks of what felt like love peppered throughout the time we spent together, in between the dishonesty, lies and general mismatch of personalities. Sexual attraction tends to fill the cracks in a relationship, but before you know it, the love you thought you had has dissipated and in its place is a shambles where you're blinded to the reality of a situation. My relationship was wrong. But it could have been right... as all relationships are supposed to weather a few storms. I think the tornado that ripped through my relationship rendered it irreparable... at least for us. Joe left me after a holiday abroad - I wasn't there - and it came like a bolt of thunder. I never thought it could happen to me, to us, but there it was. The man I loved, who'd spent near enough every day with me for nearly a year, was saying 'Hasta La Vista Baby - I won't be back'. What followed was the tumultuous hell of finding oneself single again, after a long spat of relationships, one after another.

So there I was, on my own and feeling every bit as worthless as they allowed me to feel. How can someone allow you to feel that way? Well, it's easy. Being dumped and losing friends is rejection... rejection makes you feel rubbish. And you blame yourself. And when you can't reach out to anyone and ask them to explain the whys and wherefore's, then you come to the 'natural' that it's your own fault. It has to be something you've done, haven't done, or ar. Innately you cannot change yourself... so you can go one of two ways. Brush yourself down and think, you know what, I'm a fabulous person and this just didn't work out, I'll allow myself time to grieve for the love we lost before moving on. Then again - Pah! Who really thinks like that?!

No, if you were anything like me, I went completely crazy! I cried into a teddy bear he'd left which was now sporting one of his t-shirts and I stalked him on Myspace. Yes, you read that right. I made up girls in the first week we were apart, to find out what he was doing. Then against all advice I did the very thing a girl should never do - Sex With The Ex. Yeah. The sex itself was ok, but it was nothing special. He came, came and left, leaving a gaping hole in my heart. I felt like shit, but I was addicted for a short while - I thought that the more he slept with me, the more chance we had of getting back together - not so. Men will screw you over and under and we always let them because we forget that men and women are biologically wired up completely differently.

Even when my Joe slept with several girls on his Myspace and contracted an STD which luckily, didn't get passed on to me, I thought he just needed to 'get it out of his system' before coming home to me. How deluded! For the record he never did come back to me. But I'm thankful that he didn't. Ex boyfriends are harsh people! They move on with a swift motion, obliterating what you had - to the point where you doubt yourself and think did it ever happen? Was it love? Were we close? Questions...

When I mentioned that the world would be a safer place for men if we had the ability to understand what they were thinking? I say this because women who have been dumped are statistically more likely to do stalker-type things. According to a recent study, many women when left with feelings of confusion and abandonment over a lover's rejection feel the need to confront their ex and try to ascertain what happened and/or re-ignite the broken relationship.

There's actually a scientific explanation for this - Desire. Something as simple as that - Desire, chemistry and emotions - not easy to disentangle from each other and research has shown that desire, like sex, is first triggered by what we think we want, as much as how our bodies react. It's kind of like shopping. Ever had that moment when you go out window shopping and everything is magnificent, they have your size and your stomach isn't all bloated, your boobs are perky - but, oh, there is a slight problemo. No money! Ah, but you want every garment you see because you can't have it - so you want it more! Don't believe me? OK, now try going shopping on a day when you've got cash to spare, can you find anything? No! Not without a struggle! It's the same for boys. I remember that when I was going out with Joe I lay on my bed one morning daydreaming about being single... being able to do whatever I wanted with whomever I wanted. I thought about how to dump him, how much he annoyed and irritated me. And then the moment passed, and I forgot about it.

And yet... never in my life did I feel such an urge to have him next to me as when I couldn't have him. The more unreachable he was, the more I pined. The more he treated me like a piece of shit, the more I fawned over him and made excuses for his disgusting behaviour. The more clothes you see when you have no money, the more you'll want them draped across every bit of your body. Desire is unconscious - we're not in control of where desire leads us - whether we act on it or not is a different matter. Some people compare desire to a hole within yourself that needs to be filled - whether with a man, food, shopping or whatever. And as soon as you have one thing, you replace it with the desire for another.

My final thought for you regarding the contrary nature of desire, and how it can make you feel and behave illogically, is this.

Ask yourself this one question - if you could imagine your ex-boyfriend never having sex or being romantic with anyone ever again, would you still want him back?

No... didn't think so.

(*Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent)

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