But Guy Stalkers are Just Being Sweet!

Why is it that when a girl calls or texts a guy over and over again, one that she doesn’t know that well or she’s just met, she’s thought of as being “crazy” or “obsessive?” She’s called things like “psycho” and “stalker?” Yet when a guy does the exact same thing with a girl he has just met, he is not called the same names or thought of in the same way? Instead it’s “oh he must really like you” or “how sweet and attentive!” What kind of double standard bullshit is this?
Unfortunately I have just dealt with the latter first hand. I met a guy literally last weekend. He seemed very nice at first. He was interesting, we carried on a conversation well for the several hours we were hanging out together in a group. I was attracted to him. I thought, what the hell, I gave him my number. Well apparently that was a mistake. Immediately he starts texting and calling me all. the. time.
At first the texting didn’t annoy me so much; we were carrying on a text conversation. Okay fine. But then when I needed to end the conversation and do other things he acted like I was ditching him in some way. Um, we had been texting back and forth for hours at that point. But he didn’t get angry, he just acted as though my time was owed to him in some way, like he was entitled to it. Then he calls me late at night and starts to get frustrated when I don’t want to drop everything to see him right away. #1: it’s late and I’m sleepy; #2: I just met this guy and he’s acting like I OWE it to him to see him. My warning bells start going off. This is not the guy for me. It really is starting to sound like he thinks we’re already dating and in a relationship and that any free time I have is supposed to be spent with him (I don’t believe that’s true even when you’re in a relationship anyway). I just met him! He texts over and over and when I don’t respond right away…he calls me.

Now, none of these texts or calls are mean in any way. In fact, they’re overly nice. He’s calling me “sweety” and “beautiful” but again, we just met. It’s making me uncomfortable. And when I put him off when he asks to see me he gets grouchy, but again, not mean. I respond to maybe 1 text out of every 10 he sends me. It’s hard to describe how he’s so nice but so pushy at the same time. Finally I tell him that all the texting and phone calls is way too much and I can’t handle it so please stop. I turn off my phone. This all took place in just one week.
Did I overreact? I don’t know. I don’t care. He made me feel uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because I have a bad experience with these kinds of things. Maybe it’s because one of my exes stalked me and it started out very much like this. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in an abusive relationship. Maybe it’s because I’ve been raped. I don’t know. I don’t care. He made me feel uncomfortable. But I think that constant texting, phoning and the feeling of entitlement to one’s time when you don’t even KNOW the person would’ve made anyone feel uncomfortable. But I told some of my friends about it and the main reaction I got from them was that it was “sweet” how “attentive” he was being. That he must “really like me.” The one friend of mine that seemed to get the fact that I did not like his behavior said “what is he, a needy girl?” Hmm.
But I never asked him to be so “attentive.” In fact, I asked for the opposite. I told him, before I told him to leave me alone permanently, that I didn’t have a lot of free time and he needed to respect that (I had told him the day that we met how busy I would be in the coming weeks due to the fact that I was getting ready to move to a new apartment). But he didn’t and he kept texting and phoning me non-stop. Every time I had a second of free time he felt the need to impose himself into it. And when I said no he’d get his feelings hurt. But he was a nice guy!
If a girl had done any of these things with a guy that she had just met everyone would be calling her “crazy.” Guys would be sitting around making jokes about how she was going to kill the guy in his sleep or something. It’s completely unacceptable for women to do this kind of thing. But a guy does it to a girl? Romantic. Attentive. Sweet.
No. No matter the gender, when it’s unwanted and harassing it’s never romantic and sweet. It is creepy and it’s NOT OKAY.