Selfish

Summary

The text discusses the fine line between love and obsession, emphasizing that genuine love is selfless and respectful, while stalking is a dangerous and one-sided obsession.

Abstract

The article "Selfish" delves into the complex nature of love and its potential to evolve into an unhealthy obsession, akin to stalking. It posits that love, inherently selfish, can paradoxically lead to selfless acts, especially when the object of affection is deemed irreplaceable. However, not all obsessions stem from genuine love; some escalate into stalking, where the stalker's perception of love is distorted and harmful. The piece illustrates how stalkers often misinterpret trivial interactions as significant and may become threatening when their advances are not reciprocated. It contrasts this with true love, which prioritizes the well-being and safety of the beloved over one's own desires. The article also touches on the vulnerability of celebrities to stalking due to their public personas, the potential for stalking victims to misunderstand stalkers' intentions, and the escalation of stalking behavior, which can lead to tragic outcomes.

Opinions

Love is described as a selfish emotion that can lead to selfless actions when it is genuine.
The article suggests that obsessive stalking can arise from attaching disproportionate significance to minor interactions or events.
Stalkers may not initially intend to harm their object of obsession but can become dangerous due to their inability to recognize their actions as non-consensual and threatening.
Real love is characterized by the willingness to sacrifice one's own desires for the safety and comfort of the loved one, unlike stalking, which is one-sided and intrusive.
The text implies that stalking can be a long-term issue, with stalkers often keeping detailed records of their victim's activities and engaging in one-sided communication.
It is noted that stalkers may fail to realize the impact of their behavior, and interventions such as restraining orders can sometimes provoke rather than deter them.
The article concludes that true love understands boundaries and would never resort to violence or coercion, contrasting this with the potential for stalking to end in catastrophic violence.

The Difference Between a Lover and a Stalker

Jester captured unwittingly on camera

Love is selfish, it always has been. When you love someone, it is because of what they can do for you - fill your heart with joy, flood your brain with oxytocin, meet your innate need to give and receive energy, keep you from feeling like the only Alien on a planet populated with a sub-par species.

The irony of such a selfish feeling is that, in its purest form, it is paradoxically selfless.

The more irreplaceable the object of your love, the more selfish the sentiment — and the more of yourself you’ll give up for it.

Love can be obsessive, but of course not all obsession is real and genuine love; and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference. An obsessive stalker who ends up pulling a gun on their stalkee doesn’t start out by wanting to hurt anyone. They aren’t capable of seeing that their obsession isn’t actually love - or maybe they simply don’t leave room for the possibility.

In a typical obsessive stalking scenario, the soon-to-be stalker starts by attaching a tremendous amount of significance to an inherently insignificant event. A glance at a business lunch, for example, or a friendly smile. A tattoo. Usually they are people who know each other only distantly, or who have never met.

Celebrities are, obviously, at a high risk of being stalked because their lives are so publicly available. That makes it easy for any random obsessive type to feel like they really know the celebrity.

The person being stalked, or stalkee, will sometimes believe that this guy or girl must really love them, having a serious deficit in their own understanding of love, and end up dating or even marrying that person. They never understand why something feels wrong when there’s no logical thing that looks wrong. Generally, though, those aren’t the kinds of stalkers that you hear about.

Sometimes the person being stalked will encourage the stalking at first, not really realizing what they’re doing, just trying to be polite. The stalker, feeling encouraged, becomes more aggressive in their pursuit of the one they think they love, and this is usually when they become pretty creepy.

Richard Farley baked homemade bread for his co-worker, Laura Black, and left it on her desk every Monday morning, long after she made it clear she wasn’t interested. Her friends in the office thought it was sweet — but to Laura, it felt dangerous.

Real love, the kind of love that sees what it needs in someone else and wants it, would give up the thing it most wants if that’s what the other person needs to feel safe. Real love would understand the threat in the fan mail, in the homemade bread, even if a threat wasn’t the intention at all. Real love needs aggression, but it knows when to back off.

Obsessive stalking can escalate quickly, or it can go on for years — much like any romantic relationship. Long-term stalkers tend to keep detailed journals of their stalkee’s movements. They often write long, winding letters that may or may not be grounded in any semblance of reality, and leave them where they know their stalkee will find them. (Of course, some lovers will do the same thing, but usually the dialogue between lovers involves both of them. The communication in a stalking situation is very much one-sided.)

Sometimes a stalker is caught, served a restraining order, or goes to jail for something else entirely. Sometimes the stalker realizes on their own what a massively possessive creep they’ve become, but not usually. The ones you tend to hear about are the ones who lose their job, or their stalkee marries someone else, or the restraining order enrages them, and it is enough of a catalyst to send them over to their stalkee’s home with a knife in hand or a pistol in their coat pocket, determined to take what won’t be given.

Richard Farley ended up breaking into the building after he was fired and mowing down seven people. He shot Lauren too, but she survived. He later said that he stopped shooting when killing people “wasn’t fun anymore.”

When real love goes off the deep end, it retreats. It knows when to stop pushing. There is no force in the Universe that could compel it to really hurt the one it loves. It will never take what won’t be given.

If a life must be sacrificed, it will sacrifice its own.