Bonnie* had been single for four years when he came along. Well-educated, wealthy, the son of a diplomat, he took the Sydney woman out on dates, plied her with expensive dinners; gave a perfect audition for the role of “nice boyfriend”.
“Because I hadn’t dated anyone for a while I had pretty low self-esteem,” the 34-year-old told Mamamia.
“So while I wasn’t really into him when I first met him, I thought, ‘I’ll give it a go. I haven’t really met anyone else.'”
But things soon changed.
What started as flattery became unnerving persistence, then Bonnie started catching him in weird lies. By the time they’d been together for a year, everything crumbled.
“He’d been cheating on me, seeing other people, and harassing other people,” she said.
“So when I finally found that out, I broke up with him. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
In the seven months that followed, Bonnie endured constant harassment at home, at work, online – it was oppressive, inescapable.
"I had dodgy friends say they'd 'take care of him' for me, and I was seriously considering it," she said.
"I know that sounds really harsh, but the psychological effects on me were really bad. I threw myself into work, but I lost a lot of weight.
"I was suicidal at one stage because I thought I couldn't do any better and thought this was as good as it would get for me in my life. I was at rock bottom."
The barrage of phone calls and text messages - up to 20 a night - escalated to the man waiting outside her office, turning up where she shopped for groceries, sending strange gifts to her parents, and even delivering her messages to her sister in which he threatened to kill himself.
How to recognise a toxic friendship. Post continues below.
"The worst thing was, I had a couple of friends say, 'Aren't you flattered that someone's so obsessed with you?' I had two people say that to me," she said. "That was really tough."
It's an experience that, sadly, will resonate with millions of Australians.
According to new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in five Australian women have experienced stalking during their lifetime.
That's 1.6 million women, subjected to protracted and unsolicited behaviour by, in the majority of cases, someone they know.
Overwhelmingly - 94.5 per cent of the time - that perpetrator was male. But men are also victims; according to the ABS, there are 663,800 of them, which equates to one in every 13 men. Their stalkers are equally likely to be male or female.
As noted by the ABS, methods of stalking vary (as do legal definitions state to state), but generally victims report being watched, followed, having personal property damaged, being sent/given offensive material, or being telephoned, sent mail or contacted electronically in a way that has harmed or frightened them.
Yet only 47 per cent of women stalked by men perceived themselves to be victims of a crime, and only 37 per cent reported the most recent episode to police.
Bonnie was among them, but wasn't prepared to subject herself to a trial, to relive the nightmare with the man at the centre of it sitting in the same courtroom. Thankfully a cease-and-desist notice from her lawyer was enough to put a stop to his behaviour.
But the damage doesn't disappear that easily.
According to the ABS, in the majority - 56 per cent - of cases involving a male stalker and female victim, the stalking lasted less than six months. However, for 62 per cent of those women, the fear and anxiety persisted in the 12 months that followed.
For Bonnie, even three years on, that means difficulty trusting people and suspicion of those who seem "too interested" in her, that means she's on edge every time she walks home alone, that the sound of her phone ringing still makes her heart race.
"I am always second-guessing people," she said. "Just trust. It's really hard to trust people again."
Top Comments
My heart goes out to her and others affected by stalking. I've experienced two incidents that are most probably borderline.
One was a work colleague who I saw for a short time in my early 20's, and then decided to end it. He would buy me gifts, hang around my office, cry, coerce me back into being with him, and even threatened to kill himself. He had been considered a 'star' at that company. I left and did my OE, and was relieved on the timing of that, which was planned outside of his actions, but helped remove me physically from the situation.
Interestingly, he reached out and contacted me a couple of years ago, and about 20 years after this all happened. Because his email address used his surname in plural, I thought he was happily married and it was safe to respond the once, out of that ever present female politeness thing.
I discovered he was no longer working, due to health reasons and lived with his parents. The pattern immediately appeared. His first email was full of flattery, and then when I responded politely, gave him a very broad update (we were in different countries, so felt safe to do so) and said I would not be renewing ongoing contact - I then got the abusive email about all of my short comings.
I blocked him on email.
The other incident was about 10 years after that, and luckily it did not escalate. I saw a younger man as a 'fling', that for him turned into perceived love. He lived in Canberra, I was in Sydney.
I communicated I did not want to continue seeing him, and I got sent gifts to try and convince me otherwise - because as he saw it, I was his 'the one'. Then one day he rang to say he was on his way from Canberra to see me - yes I made the mistake of answering the phone, but he was my flatmates brother and I was trying to handle it all politely and not burn bridges with my flatmate. I of course insisted he did not come.
I actually hid in my house as he was knocking on my door. He had driven all the way up from Canberra. I felt awful about myself, that maybe somehow I was being the horrible one to him. I was also clear, and that is what drove me - that I did not want to develop a relationship with him, as his extreme ardor in such a short space of time and really little substance between us, and the deafness to my feedback were confirmation for me.
I guess both times I was lucky it did not escalate into one of those truly nightmarish stories. Though it still impacted me, that it made me, possibly at times wrongly, wary of men showing me too much affection and attention in the early stages - so of course I went down a path of attracting emotionally unavailable men that I was more into, than they were me.
Stalking is horrible. I haven't had a situation that bad, but I've had issues with a couple of neighbours. The first one (female) was obsessed and tried to befriend me. She would always appear when I stepped outside the house. In the early days, I stupidly agreed to give her a spare key ("in case you lock yourself out", she said). One day she told me that she let herself into my place to close the windows as it might rain. I left and moved into another place as quickly as possible.
The second time was a male, and he had a creepy out-of-control man crush on my then husband. Same thing, the guy would "appear" every time I stepped outside, and he started letting himself inside the house to search for my husband. My husband thought it was harmless. I couldn't cope with it at all. It was a huge blow to my marriage.