In the trying college zone of love and dating, one group of players stands out above the rest – the type that doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

Welcome to the complex world of a Syracuse University stalker, with its trademark of desperate persistence and a code of unflinching surveillance.

‘I saw him staring at me from out of the corner of my eye,’ said Christine Werthman, a junior magazine major, who says she was stalked by a graduate student two years ago. ‘He was sitting on the steps of Hendricks Chapel, smiling and saying ‘hi, hello, hi.’ Then he started speed-walking after me.’

The campus is brimming with ‘peeping Tom’ accounts of lovelorn followers and their prey. While their victims are usually limited in number, their devices and ploys are extensive.

A simple telephone call was the scheme one curious admirer used to coax My Nguyen, a senior biochemistry major.

‘He was like, ‘Hi, I’ve been observing you and appreciate you for who you are,” she said.

Her admirer, a classmate in her major, started sending her gifts such as chocolates and cards after the calls. Nguyen eventually resorted to listing the caller as ‘Stalker’ in her phone in order to skirt his advances.

Capt. Grant Williams, the head of crime prevention and investigations for the Department of Public Safety, says he deals with about 10 to 15 harassment cases on campus over the course of the year.

‘The majority of these cases are annoyance situations,’ he said, ‘and most of them happen on the weekend when alcohol is involved.’

A student may first display signs of obsession after a friendship is misinterpreted as a more intimate agreement. On a quest for attention, the jaded person then tracks the target by using the personal information provided in Web pages and university directories.

‘I met this guy through a Web page for meeting other people,’ said Melody Garcia, a junior civil engineering major. ‘It was just a friendship, but he just keeps IMing me. To this day, he still doesn’t get the point.’

One popular Web site for personal information, Thefacebook.com, provides outsiders with details ranging from birthdates to class schedules.

‘My guy friend had two friends in common with another girl, and used it as his reason for meeting her,’ said Erik Jeffrey, a junior television, radio and film major. ‘He hasn’t left her alone since.’

Elyse Barletta, an undecided freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences, made the mistake of giving a classmate her phone number 20 minutes after meeting him.

‘Once, he called me five times in two hours and even used someone else’s phone so I wouldn’t know it was him,’ she said. ‘When I gave him my number I wouldn’t think he would call.’

According to a recent study released by the National Institute of Justice, about 8 percent of American women are stalked by someone in their lifetime, while only 2 percent of American men deal with the same problem.

While statistics like these support the idea that more trackers are men, they also indicate that women pursue members of the opposite sex to a similar degree.

‘Guys do get stalked – they’re just more oblivious to it,’ said Mary Gallagher, a freshman biology major. ‘For a lot of girls, if we like a guy, we figure out his class schedule and then ‘accidentally’ bump into him.’

This situation reversal, students say, is an anomaly due to the gender roles that society encourages people to incorporate into a relationship.

‘Even in a healthy dating situation, a guy is supposed to approach the girl, and it falls over into situations like this,’ Jeffrey said.

Nicki Neudorfer, a junior psychology major, said women feel vulnerable to men because males are more intimidating. Her stalker, ‘Sketchy Jeff,’ was persistent and annoying, she said, but not to the point where she felt threatened.

‘I would never let myself be alone with him,’ she said, ‘because being alone furthered his confidence for potential.’

A problem that frequently causes obsession and prevents its elimination is the lack of communication. Most students agree, though, that even expressing one’s annoyance does not always stop the provoker.

‘I told my friend to leave me alone, and, after I blocked his screen name, he started text messaging me,’ said Kristin Campanelli, a junior political science major. ‘Finally, I text messaged him to stop and he left me alone.’

Barletta said her antagonist, who she refers to as ‘Stalker Steve,’ repeatedly called her five times a night and tried to get her to come to frat parties with him. As a final attempt to curb her aggressor, she pretended to be drunk in order to have an excuse for her uninhibited rejection of his advances.

‘I was like, ‘This had better stop, or I’ve got a problem,” she said.

When assistance from outside forces becomes necessary, DPS has protocol designed to deal with any form of disruptive behavior, Williams said. If the stalking occurs through the Internet, Public Safety may inform Computing and Media Services that the aggressor’s system needs to be disconnected. A person with complaints about a phone stalker may be provided with a system called ‘call trace,’ which allows the person to lock calls into his or her phone for later reference. When the mounds of love poems, frantic glances, and bad vibes evolve into physical advances, Williams suggests contacting the department immediately.

‘If a person is physically following someone, we take that kind of seriously,’ he said. ‘If every time you walk outside the door you think that there’s someone following you, that could make one insane.’

Although Barletta curbed her stalker without the help of DPS, she still experiences the effects of his deluded intentions.

‘If they’re already a psycho stalker, ignoring them won’t work,’ she said. ‘His calls have finally stopped, but now when I go to class he just stares, and it’s kind of freaky.’

Published on October 13, 2004 at 12:00 pm