I had a stalker for years (over a decade). And the only reason he stalked me was because the girl he liked said hi to me and we talked for like 5 minutes. He saw that interaction and something in his brain just flipped and he stalked by coming into my place of employment ..
...stalking me online, calling me and hanging up (have no idea how he got my number or figured out where I worked at the time). But I am a 6 foot 3 inch guy who played sports so I had a muscular build at the time and I was petrified of him. He just gave off these strong "I will..
...shoot you in the face and not even think twice about it." It took serious intervention, a lawyer, a restraining order and some light "hood justice" until he was finally more scared of me than I was of him.
For a woman to go through that is just horrible. Absolute terror.
The craziest thing is that the woman I talked to for 5 minutes was just a friend I knew from a class we shared. We were literally just talking about the teacher's teaching style and an upcoming mid-term. I wasn't interested in her like that and she wasn't in me -- but this guy...