High School Stalker

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Have you ever met someone who you feel is secretly monitering and sabotaging you? I have.</p>

<p>There is this girl who I went to middle school and high school with. Ever since I can remember, she has constantly tried to compete with me or thwart me in some way. Furthermore, she is excessively nosy.</p>

<p>During middle school, I used to be really outgoing, self-assured, and social. I had a lot of stuff going on. Constantly, this girl would ask me personal questions or invade my space in one way or another. Here is a list of what she’s done:</p>

<li><p>In 6th grade, I had a crush on this guy, and I wrote his name all over my personal planner. She got a hold of my planner, and told the boy’s girlfriend about it. (I did not know that he had a girlfriend at the time, however). As a result, the girl wanted to fight me.</p></li>
<li><p>One day in 6th grade, she asked me if I was gay because I used to hang around this girl a lot. In my opinion, you should never ask someone about their sexual orientation unless they are a really good friend. That’s a very private question. (I’m not gay, if you’re wondering)</p></li>
<li><p>During the ninth grade, I had to debate her in a biotechnology debate. As I was giving my speech, she kept yelling and outspeaking me. It was totally frustrating not being able to get a word in. Sadly, she won the debate. Being the nice person that I am, I nonetheless congratulated her on the win. </p></li>
<li><p>Knowing how crazy she was, during high school, I did my best to avoid her. Since I’m a really nice person, she somehow thinks/thought that we were friends. Therefore, when she saw me avoding her during hs, it probably frustrated her. As a result, during 12th grade, we did exhibitions for my AP English class on books that we read during the school year. She was in a different group that me, but we both had to present the same book (Frankenstein.) My group worked really hard on our presentations, and everyone congratulated us on a job well done. I guess this girl got jealous because she accused my group of stealing their ideas, although our group never had any contact with their group. How despicable!!!</p></li>
<li><p>During 12th grade, I had a crush on her former boyfriend from middle school, and I tried to start a relationship with him. However, after talking with him, I lost interest because he was really inconsiderate. Consequently, I did not want to speak with him anymore because he really hurt my feelings. Although this girl was already in a relationship with a great guy who I personally knew from summer camp, she dumped him and suddenly tried to hook up with the guy who I lost interest in. Not long after, the guy committed suicide. To this day, I am still saddened and confused by his death.</p></li>
<li><p>If you think this is bad, then here is the worse part–SHE IS TRYING TO TRANSFER TO WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY–THE SCHOOL THAT I CURRENTLY ATTEND. What the heck? Although she recieved a full scholarship to the school that she currently attends, she suddenly wants to transfer to my school immediately after I transferred. I cannot understand it. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>I am really scared because I don’t want her to accepted. This girl is crazy, manipulative, and I don’t know what her plan is. I am in college, and I do not want any high school drama in my life.</p>

<p>What do you guys think? I told my mom about it, and she thinks that I shouldn’t worry, but you all simply don’t what this girl is capable of doing.</p>

2

<p>You need to stop allowing yourself to be walked all over like that. Just be straight up with her. You don’t have to be so nice to her.</p>

3

<p>I’m sorry you feel this way. :frowning: However, nothing you have written here indicates any serious stalking behaviors. Washington is a big place, and it is not likely that you will have much contact with her. Take a deep breath and relax.</p>

4

<p>It’s not the University of Washington but Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri–a top 20 school. (<a href=“http://www.wustl.edu%5B/url%5D”>www.wustl.edu</a> )</p>

5

<p>I see a few incidents spread over a 7 year or so period- plus we are only hearing your side of story
But it reminds me a of a joke I was told today</p>

<p>* how many teen age girls does it take to change a light bulb?*</p>

<p>One- but the room has to revolve around her ;)</p>

6

<p>This is a serious matter.</p>

7

<p>You are in college now. You can’t keep fussing about stuff that happened back in the 6th grade. </p>

<p>There is no reason you ever have to spend another single minute with this girl. You have your college friends and she’ll have hers. Just relax and quit worrying about it.</p>

8

<p>these incidents are not evidence that she is stalking you or otherwise as fixated on you as you appear to be on her</p>

<p>I realize that some people are more dramatic than others ( as evidenced by three threads entitlted I think I am dying), but really- move on- I am sure you have enough going on with your life that you don’t need to worry about things that haven’t even happened </p>

<p>If she had threatened you or physically harmed you in some way, then there would be something to actually act on- but seriously- listen to adults with more perspective.
This is nothing
just wait till you get into office politics!</p>

9

<p>How did you find out she was transfering to your school? Do you two keep in touch or something!??</p>

10

<p>I found out through facebook. We have a mutual friend, and she wrote that she applying to WUSTL on the mutual friend’s wall. I hope that I don’t sound overdramatized. It’s just that I find this to be a little strange.</p>

11

<p>Using words like “stalker” is certainly over-dramatizing the situation. I think there is a possibility here that you are projecting your own obsessions onto her behavior. It’s been years. She may well be only vaguely aware of you at this point - just some girl she knew back in middle school. Time for you to stop constantly looking over your shoulder and move on.</p>

12

<p>For the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that you are correct that she’s a nutjob. First of all, I don’t know whether you’re trying to explain that she really is nuts and doing a bad job of it (the cheating accusation really worries me; in my high school, if you were caught cheating, you would automatically flunk the course); second, this advice applies to anyone who has crazy people in their lives. As someone who has had an overabudance of psycho whack jobs in her life, I know how to keep them at bay.</p>

<p>First of all, she may not get in to WUSTL. Second of all, when she does, there are ways to protect your privacy. You can get your phone number taken off the school website, if it is there. If she sends annoying emails, you can have them blocked. </p>

<p>If you live in a dorm, an RA can intercede if she gets nutty on you there. </p>

<p>College professors are not high school debate judges. If she tries to do anything weird in class, you can speak to the professor, explain the situation, and have him intercede. There are very few opportunities to go head-to-head with someone in college academics (as you know). </p>

<p>Do not post your classes on your Facebook wall, or make your profile only accessible to your friends. This will ensure that crazy stalker types don’t sign up for your classes. In general, don’t put your cell on your Facebook, or have it accessible only to friends. Use those privacy controls.</p>

<p>If you have IM, set the controls so that only people on your buddy list can see that you are online. </p>

<p>If she tries to pull anything in the dining hall, on campus, etc., then report it to whatever person would be applicable. Start with an RA, just to get on record about the behaviour; work your way up to the deans. Colleges do not want you to sue them because they allow a harassing environment to occur. Beware, though: often, anyone who adjudicates such decisions is going to be very wary of coming down hard on either party; no matter how right you are, they will try to mediate. They will not kick either party out of school, no matter what. (When I had someone stalking me, who did not go to the school, one of my friends explained the procedure at my alma mater. It is very burdensome for the person who is not doing anything wrong; it is focused on getting the two people to coexist on campus instead of focusing on stopping the behaviour. It is frightening how little protection there is for someone who is being harassed by a person at that school.)</p>

<p>When all else fails - someone is paying her bills. That someone probably isn’t paying them so that she can make your life hell.</p>

13

<p>Vtoodler, if I may, it sounds as if you are paying far more attention to her than she is to you. As others have said, move on. Get deeply engaged in moving your own life forward, and you will forget about her. </p>

<p>In addition, as emeraldkity pointed out, what you think you might be experiencing now is NOTHING compared to what happens in business, especially as you begin to move upward and into positions of authority, or begin to experience success. The best way to mitigate or neutralize these types of situations is (1) always be diligent about protecting your personal privacy and information, and (2) always be very nice and kind to others, even if (in your opinion) they don’t deserve it. Being very nice, kind and courteous to others and helping them whenever you can usually puts a quick end to this sort of stuff.</p>

<p>Of course, if you’re heavily engaged and focused on your own priorities, you tend to not even notice what other people are up to…</p>

14

<p>Aries has excellent advice. Take heed of her suggestions; you will be fine.</p>

15

<p>You probably should trust your intuition. One of the things that women who end up victimized say in retrospect is that they tamped down feelings that something was wrong. Because we don’t want to make a fuss; we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings; we don’t want to wrongly accuse someone; we don’t want to be stereotyped as hysterical; we go against our better judgement and often end up sorry. If you think there is something wrong with a person’s interaction with you, there probably is. The intuition we have about these things is a survival skill.</p>

<p>It probably is better not to go public with your feelings, but I would do what I could to make myself inaccessible to this person. The other posters have made some good suggestions in this regard. If the situation escalates, don’t hesitate to discuss your concerns with the school.</p>

<p>I wanted to address what you said about the young man who committed suicide. It’s common for friends and relatives to be haunted by guilt and confusion years later, and to feel responsible, either for causing it or for not stopping it. Most of the time, no one ever really knows what makes another person do that. It’s very unlikely for it to have been anything that you or the other young woman did.</p>

16

<p>you’re even crazier than she is for remembering all of this stuff since 6th grade and making a list about it
dont let her get to you like that. you’re in college. there are tens of thousands of people around. you can avoid her now. cut her out of your life, you’ve got the power</p>

17

<p>mallomarcookie, unless you have been bullied like this, you have no idea what a bully who is determined will try to do…so calling someone crazy is unwarranted</p>

<p>What the girl may find is that without an audience, her antics won’t be as much fun</p>

<p>to the OP:</p>

<p>remember, you were at your college first- you have relationships with friends, profs, etc., and they see who you really are, and won’t buy into the immaturity of this jerk of a girl if she tries to continue her behavior with regards to you</p>

<p>Mt D had a bully in middle school, she was dreading to a degree going to HS with the same girl</p>

<p>A couple of things happened:
the bully was suddenly in a very big sea with kids who didn’t think she was “all that”
the bully’s audience was gone
my D decided to make the best impression on all she met, with extra confidence, so that if the bully tried anything, my D would have a great reputation, etc and if the bully tried to undermine her, it wouldn’t work</p>

<p>Aries advice was spot on, intelligent girl she is</p>

<p>Take all that energy you have that is focused now on this twit of a girl from high school, and put it toward friends, classes, significant others, etc</p>

<p>doing well and having a great time is the best revenge</p>

18

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<p>Don’t allow her any importance in your life. Ignore her and continue on with your life. If she does transfer and she does in fact go out of her way to cause you real problems–then deal with it at the time. Don’t give this girl the power to mess up your life worrying about her now.</p>

19

<p>CGM
I disagree that she is being bullied going by these examples</p>

<p>*3. During the ninth grade, I had to debate her in a biotechnology debate. As I was giving my speech, she kept yelling and outspeaking me. It was totally frustrating not being able to get a word in. Sadly, she won the debate. Being the nice person that I am, I nonetheless congratulated her on the win. *
Wouldn’t the adults judging the competitition disqualify this girl if she was behaving inappropriately instead of awarding her the win?</p>

<p>*4. As a result, during 12th grade, we did exhibitions for my AP English class on books that we read during the school year. She was in a different group that me, but we both had to present the same book (Frankenstein.) My group worked really hard on our presentations, and everyone congratulated us on a job well done. I guess this girl got jealous because she accused my group of stealing their ideas, although our group never had any contact with their group. *</p>

<p>I don’t have info about where this knowledge came from that this girl accused toodlers group of stealing their work- Is this rumor? was it brought to the teacher , the principal?
Not enough to go on</p>

<p>4. During 12th grade, I had a crush on her former boyfriend from middle school, and I tried to start a relationship with him. However, after talking with him, I lost interest because he was really inconsiderate. Consequently, I did not want to speak with him anymore because he really hurt my feelings. Although this girl was already in a relationship with a great guy who I personally knew from summer camp, she dumped him and suddenly tried to hook up with the guy who I lost interest in. Not long after, the guy committed suicide. To this day, I am still saddened and confused by his death.</p>

<p>If there were ongoing concerns with this girl, why try and get something going with her exboyfriend? Why then feel personally involved because this girl then resumed her previous relationship with her boyfriend just because he didn’t return your interest?</p>

<p>The fact that someone that you knew from summer camp also dated this girl and committed suicide- isn’t an indication of her harrasing you, it sounds like it has nothing to do with you.</p>

<p>5. If you think this is bad, then here is the worse part–SHE IS TRYING TO TRANSFER TO WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY–THE SCHOOL THAT I CURRENTLY ATTEND. What the heck? Although she recieved a full scholarship to the school that she currently attends, she suddenly wants to transfer to my school immediately after I transferred. I cannot understand it.
again- you seem to be overly concerned with what she is doing- I am not sure why.
Youve stated that your own mother isn’t concerned- that should give you pause.</p>

20

<p>Having lived with bullies in middle school, I have seen the “tricks” pulled by girls</p>

<p>they weren’t obvious tripping in the halls, or calling names, but more subtle, but no less disturbing</p>

<p>as for teachers stopping things, please, after living through it, the 8th grade teachers were like, REALLY? that was going on? who knew?</p>

<p>after one girl got in trouble for “threatening” the bullies, the bullies were able to bring on the tears, it was a joke how the school handled it, when it was right in their faces</p>

<p>I agree that the OP needs to get on with her life, but having dealt with some 'mean girls" myself, in HS, I understand the frustration for wanting to get someone out of your life and they stick around like cockroaches or used gum</p>