What stalkers want was to create a situation where their targets can’t move forward in life, meet new people, so they become the stalkers “property”.

A (thankfully very ex) friend collected articles about me (ones produced without my consent and when I was in my teens).

She liked the idea of me being stuck in the past and being able to “shame” me with all the articles as in “look who you REALLY are and what you SHOULD be interested in who do you think you are trying to make new friends or take up a new interest?”. 

When she saw me talking to a man after my divorce, she went up to him to “warn” him about my “weird past” as she felt he had a “right to know” (I was about 21 at the time)  . She was like a walking talking version of a newspaper.

I mean of course he ignored her and asked me on a date, but I think that’s kind of the end goal of the stalker, to stop their target from moving forward?

What the media wanted was me so isolated socially (wholly due to their behaviour) that I would feel I had no other option but to “confide” in them (of course, with a camera and tape recorder rolling to keep the story going)

And of course, they could then run articles on how “isolated” I was, and doesn’t studying maths do that to you?