Okay, stalker is too strong a word for what's going on here. Stalkers are people who follow you around and send death treats when you don't comply with their bizarro wished a la Dawnette Knight. This is something that is much more mild and yet wholly retains its unpleasantness.

It starts with that whole, "hey a bunch of us are going out this weekend so why don't you give me your number so we can get in touch," which really seems so benign, especially when you have just moved to a foreign country and don't have any friends and would like to go out.

After that happens, you start getting phone calls and texts (oh, Strange Thing #11: Test messages in this country are the primary mode of communication) that are in no way related to going out with the group. Okay. Still nice to have a friend, right?


P.S. You know that he knows he's out of bounds when he starts calling you from different numbers because you have been screening and stopped answering calls from his primary number. He knows he's gone over the line.