Say you have a Stalker with a Crush. He relentlessly pursues his love interest, watching her as she sleeps, resorting to superfluous and often very disturbing lengths to protect her if he feels the need. She's probably going to be creeped out, right?
Wrong.
Instead of outright rejecting this guy's advances on the first go, the object of these advances isn't even irritated. She's completely dazzled and views them as romantic, completely overlooking the stalkerish implications of what he's doing.
Most characters of this type are intended to be sympathetic; the lengths the fella goes to is supposed to show just how much he loves his beloved (or she hers — this can happen to characters of any gender). But characters like this can be very unnerving to readers and audiences who realize just how far things have gone.
There is an unfortunate Double Standard common in the depiction of this trope. Stalker type behavior in a man can make him a romantic hero but the same behavior will almost always make a woman dangerous or pathetic. Interestingly, the Stalker with a Crush trope features an exactly opposite Double Standard.
See also Abduction Is Love, Do Not Do This Cool Thing.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
Mirai Nikki just loves playing ping-pong with this trope. By the end, the status of it seems to be, "Stalking is love, but only because you're as crazy as her now."
In Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, although Tsuna is sort of creeped out by Gokudera's Stalker with a Crush tendencies, the show depicts him as being a very loyal and wonderful friend, writing off his desire to kill off anyone who gets close to Tsuna as being comedy.
In Full Metal Panic, Sousuke is assigned a mission in which he must follow Kaname around and protect her from terrorists, all the while not letting her know. Although his actions are way overboard by any normal standards and could easily be constructed as stalking, Kaname seems to view it with a mixture of curiosity, annoyance, attraction, and a bit of amusement. The reasons are probably a mix of the factors that Sousuke's actions are extremelyoutlandish even by stalking standards, he appears to have as much grasp of romance and sexuality as her hamster, and of course that he is extremely attractive. This disappears when she finds Sousuke on her balcony with a pair of her panties in his hand (which, in fact, were snatched back from Shinji, who was the one trying to steal it), at which point she attempts to beat him to death with a baseball bat and completely refuses to trust or talk to him until he reveals the truth behind his actions.
Leonard also seems to believe in this trope towards Kaname.
Tona Gura: Yuuji Kagura towards Kazuki Arisaka. His efforts are clumsy, and easily turned away, and he does not insist on being and knowing her entire existence. Despite being mostly a Chivalrous Pervert. Repeated beatings at her hands and the bullets of his little sister's guns do not seem capable of dissuading him from grabbing at her and raising her skirt, or trying to bear-hug her in a state of undress.
Played with the usual amount of taste and seriousness (that is, none at all) in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, where Matoi and Kafuka certainly believe this. Of course, Nozomu kindly informs her that mutual suicide is true love. And then unfortunately informs her that he'd be happy to kill himself with her at any time, so she took up stalking him while her previous stalking victim started stalking her.
Despite many of the girls in the class believing this, they are off-put by an expression by a (clearly perverted and weird) Buddhist Monk of this philosophy in one episode. The episode deals with different things in life being "previews" for later things, and the Monk claims that standing outside of your beloved's home is a preview for a date. His audience protests that this is just stalking.
Arguably, the series (if only for Rule of Funny) shows the philosophy validated. After a while, Itoshki seems completely used to Matoi following him everywhere, even into the bathroom, and is quite comfortable in one episode with her living in his home, and is also comfortable with Kiri Komori living in his closet, and she also followed him into the bathroom at least once.
In Ask Dr. Rin!, this is Meirin, full stop. Maybe justified by the fact that she and Asuka are childhood friends, but that angle just makes it look even more awkward.
Zetsuai1989 is about a male singer named Kouji who's childhood crush on a male soccer star named Izumi that he fell for as a kid, leads to assorted sexual harassment when the two meet in person years later. The series romanticizes stalking and rewards the attacker in the end when the victim becomes comfortable with his stalker and stops running away.
Spoofed in Durarara!! when Anri (jokingly) implies that she's been stalking Mikado. Upon hearing this, Mikado's brain starts zig-zagging the hell out of this trope (complete with Mikado's Inner Puppet Theater) like only a hormonal teenager can before Anri finally tells him she was kidding
Mikado: Oh, crap! Is she a stalker? Wait. If she's cute it's okay, rig—No, this is bad. It might go like... She might stab me! Or set my house on fire! And what if she takes my parents hostage?... But, maybe she has a nice personality. Then it would be okay, right?... Wait. If she did, she wouldn't be stalking me!
Shuichi from Gravitation chases Yuki constantly, despite being rejected, verbally abused, and often being called a little brat. They eventually end up together.
In Koharu No Hibi while Akira is freaked out by Koharu's Stalker with a Crush tendencies he still eventually ends up dating her because as he said he can't leave her alone.
In Rosario + Vampire, Mizore constantly stalks the main character by hiding in a dozen various places and spying on him because she has a crush on him. Too bad he never notices.
Arima's dark side in Kare Kano. Any time that he comes onto the screen, you just know Arima is seconds away from shattering. This is made worse because to the outside world, he appears to be a put together, genius with his only match being Yukino, his girlfriend. It's scary to slowly see his thoughts morph from wanting to be with Yukino, to wanting to isolate her from everyone and keep her just for himself. His fighting with these thoughts proves that Arima is a good guy, but him imagining tying Yukino in chains does not bode well for their relationship. This is a rare case of Stalker with a Crush in which not only is the stalker in a committed relationship with his crush, but he is also portrayed as so sympathetic that you just want to save him from himself.
Played all over the place in A Certain Magical Index. Mikoto is being stalked by the grandson of her school's dean. While he's pretty attractive, she still finds him creepy and she can't just zap him because of his status, so she enlists Toma to pretend to be her boyfriend long enough to throw him off. This doesn't work—because he's actually a spy sent to keep an eye on Toma's growing list of powerful True Companions, specifically Mikoto. Except that he really is in love with her, and volunteered for the mission so that they wouldn't send someone else, who wouldn't have a problem killing her if she got difficult (and "difficult" is a pretty good way of summarizing Mikoto).
Comic Books
Siryn, from Marvel Comics, specifically said she liked the part where Deadpool was just a romantic admirer. Considering the dangerous life she does lead, a super-powered bodyguard was kinda nice. It did help. Sadly, Deadpool swiftly slid from 'awkward romantic' into 'looney tunes whackjob' and it took a beating or seven before he got it in his brain to leave her alone.
One time while watching her sleep, Deadpool laments that what he's doing used to be considered romantic, but now it's called "stalking" and generally considered "Trespass". But that's Deadpool.
In the Twilight fan fictionThe (Not So) Short Second Life of Bree Tanner the main character, Bree, is the object of some restraining order-worthy affection from Alec, though - unlike Bella with Edward — she's not nearly as charmed by the creepily felonious antics or isn't shy about mentioning it.
In Code Geass Mao Of The Deliverance, Mao travels hundreds of miles to find C.C. again while listening to her voice constantly on his headphones. She actually recorded this for him, however, and he is really just trying to save her life (albeit against her wishes).
Most(but not all) Glee fanfics that involve Kurt/Dave Karofsky will have this trope.
The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic The Games We Play is about one of Rainbow Dash's friends having a crush on her and using the Mare Do Well costume as a means to disguise their identity and get close to her without risking their friendship. Except "get close to her" pretty much ends up meaning "stalk and sexually harass her". Zigzagged in that Dash is very unhappy with this, but starts to reciprocate, and ends up feeling pretty damn confused.
Trinity in The Matrix likes to watch Neo as he sleeps.
Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything. Standing outside her window holding up a boombox playing "In Your Eyes"? Come on!
Considering that by that point, they had made love in the back of her car, and she'd never dated before at all and was ultra-confused with everything happening in her life at that point, that was less 'stalker', more 'I'm showing you how much I love you, so why did you dump me?' Bit of a different, possibly strange way to show it, but he was at least bothering to make the effort.
Though the fact that it comes after a dozen or so unanswered phone calls pushes it back into the "stalker" category. At least this time he accepts that it's over between them.
The Cary Grant movie Every Girl Should Be Married features a rare female-stalking-male example.
The Romantic ComedyManagement was completely undermined by the fact that Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston's otherwise sweetly quirky relationship consisted of him stalking her across the country.
The protagonist of Diva stalks an opera star, then finally meets her ... and she sleeps with him.
The 2004 film Closer:
Anna: Because you stalk me outside my studio.
Dan: I don't stalk, I lurk, and when I'm not there you look for me.
Anna: How would you know I look for you if you're not there?
Dan: Because I am there, lurking from a distance.
We're introduced to Ricky in American Beauty when he's following Jane around with a video camera, filming her. Funnily enough she asks him to stop filming her and he puts the camera away, saying okay.
In Kissing Jessica Stein, Jessica ends up with Josh who quite obsessively went through her personal files (including letters) at work. Apparently, because he was motivated by jealousy from their past relationship, this is fine.
Scott falls in love with roller-skating, punk-haired Ramona Flowers at first sight, across a public space. He stalks her in a way that’s apparently meant to be adorable... To be fair, it's lampshaded right off the bat ("And then... he stalked her...") and played for laughs. She agrees to go out with him the next time they speak, and is never really aware of his previous stalking, but neither does she seem to like him any more than "meh, he's a nice guy."
From what is shown of her various exes, she also has a tendency to date psychotic people. This includes Gideon, who creates The League of Evil Exes to keep her from dating anyone else and return to him, brainwashes her into being with him again, and hits and shove her down some steps in a decidedly non-comedic way. Compared to that, a guy who shyly follows her around at a party would be normal.
WALL-E: Wall-E starts stalking Eve shortly after they first meet. The love story between the two is the heart of the movie. It should be noted that Wall-E's obsession with her is pretty understandable, since Eve is the only non-cockroach he's seen in centuries. Also, while Eve is initially hostile about it, she later decides she doesn't care since a) Wall-E is pretty harmless and b) on the off chance he's not, Eve is capable of destroying mountains. The DVD Commentary pokes fun at this: "He's got stalker charm!"
The obvious Twilight rip-off Blood Red Moon features this, with the the male lead Victor. However he does it... poorly. As Obscurus Lupa put it in her review:
"At least Edward Cullen stood more than six feet away when he was stalking someone."
In Untamed Heart, Adam and Caroline's relationship really begins because he rescues her from attackers while stalking her. He also enters her room while she's sleeping which he somehow pulls off without her calling the police.
In Men In Black, K uses the MIB's super-advanced Spy Satellites to spy on his old girlfriend. It's implied he does this on a regular basis. In the sequel, it's revealed that he married her after leaving the organization, but that she divorced him because (even after Laser-Guided Amnesia) he was still Married to the Job.
Strongly represented in Crazy Stupid Love in the storyline of the son. Even to the point where the object of his desire is sending him messages to stop because he's making her uncomfortable. It's still presented as romantic, though.
A blatant example in Major League, Jake stalks his crush several times after Willy's character says to follow her home (Since he didn't know where she lived) and she seems to take this all with just a shrug of her shoulders despite telling him it's over several times. They end up together at the end of the film.
In Disturbia, Kale watches Ashley from his bedroom, though rarely for things like undressing. He later tells her about all the little personal quirks and hobbies he knows about her from his spying, to prove that he understands her. They kiss right after this. Granted she does tell him that it's either "the creepiest or the most romantic thing [she] ever heard".
Gary, the eponymous character in The Last American Virgin stalks Karen by leering at her at the ice cream parlor, by letting the air out of her bike's tires so he can give her a ride to school, following her around and watching her have sex with Rick.
In Superman Returns the Man of Steel spends some spying on Lois at her house after finding out she's married now.
The Amazing Spider-Man: Peter's love interest Gwen Stacy doesn't have much of a problem with finding out she graces the background of his computer, or him attending a tour of hers that he clearly didn't sign up for*
he didn't sign up for the tour for her sake
, or him repeatedly visiting her room via the window rather than by the door*
he explains it as being scared of the doorman the first time and by the second she knows he's Spidey
. May be lampshaded by showing she owns several Twilight books.
In P2, Thomas expects Angela to be attracted to him even after he kidnaps her, chases her through the parking lot, kills two of her coworkers, locks her in the trunk of a car, and sics his dog on her.
Played for laughs in There's Something About Mary, in which the title character has several men who are stalking her and plotting to win her love.
Destro has this sort of relationship with the Baroness. Unlike traditional versions of the romance where it's entirely consensual, he seems very interested in the current one despite her showing only marginal interest in return. He even has her husband killed for touching her. However, he also knows she's mind controlled.
Literature
In Ovid's Metamorphoses (specifically the Daphne and Apollo chapter), Apollo tells Daphne that he chases her not as a foe, but from love, making this trope at least Older Than Feudalism.
Not really; she certainly didn't see it that way.
In the musical's sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, Christine realized long ago that she wasn't "looking with her heart" when she chose Raoul over the Phantom. So stalking and murder IS love in this version! It's especially sad considering that in the book Erik realizes that he's a sick, psychopathic, horrible stalker, but can't stop himself, eventually choosing suicide as the solution. He may be The Woobie, but the kind of Woobie who doesn't mind killing hundreds of people to get the attention of his love-interest.
In The Phantom of the Opera, Raoul's claim to Christine's love is that he's been obsessed with her since he met her when they were children, becomes jealous and possessive the moment he suspects she's seeing someone else (Note that at this point he hasn't even spoken to her since they were children). And then he waits in the darkness outside her dressing room so he can sneak inside and search for The Phantom. And smell her clothing.
In Twilight, Edward Cullen starts out by flat-out stalking Bella and watching her as she sleeps. Does she mind? No. Even as he tells her how dangerous he is, she still finds him attractive. He eventually takes Bella away from her human friends (that she never really liked in the first place) and her old life (that she hated) and she goes along willingly the whole way. He even lampshades this in the aborted prequel Midnight Sun, becoming disgusted with himself when he sneaks into Bella's window to watch her sleep and berating himself as a creepy stalker who should not be doing this. It doesn't stop him from going ahead and doing it anyway.Repeatedly. When he does finally confess that he has been watching her sleep, she is flattered. Yes, you read that right. She is flattered. By someone watching her sleep. WHAT THE FU-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM?!?!?
In the Kate Daniels novel Magic Strikes, Kate learns that Curran has been breaking into her apartment to watch her sleep (and eat her snacks). While she calls him a stalker to his face and threatens to call the cops on him, the shapeshifters consider this normal courtship behavior.
In Hush Hush, Patch constantly stalks Nora. Her being flustered and bothered by this is treated like a Meet Cute, even though we later learn that he initially was stalking her to learn how best to murder her. We also later learn that he decided that he loved her during said stalking, before they even met once. Not creepy in the slightest, oh no...
This happens in the Twilight-ripoff Fifty Shades Of Grey. The title character actually tracks Ana via her cellphone, which, in addition to being creepy, is kind of illegal.
Live Action TV
Good Lord. Roughly half of all Korean Drama. Flower Boy Next Door for instance, starts out with such a scene within the first five minutes.
Heroes: West, toward Claire. He flew around outside her window (gee, can't imagine why). She is at first irritated, but accepts him a little too easily. Then again, Claire has a lot of issues. And whether this is stalking in the romantic sense is debatable since he seemed to be doing this to find out if she has powers, not in order to see her naked.
Season 8 episode of How I Met Your Mother "PS: I Love You" explores this and Stalker with a Crush, and basically says the difference between being a stalker and being romantic is whether the stalkee is interested in the stalker.
In Oz, Ryan O'Reily gets his brother to murder Dr. Nathan's husband, forces kisses on her, kills her rapist to avenge her, and out-and-out stalks her. At first Gloria isn't happy when she learns that Ryan had her husband killed, and initially suspects that O'Reily was the one who arranged for her to get raped after she rejected him. But after she learns Ryan had nothing to do with her rape and killed the guy who did attack her, her opinion of him starts to change. So it works (eventually), and she ends up falling in love with him. Though the show lampshades this as not being a very healthy relationship.
Beecher and Chris have an off and on relationship mostly because of how possessive and violent Chris can be, seeing as how he killed every one of Beecher's former lovers. Even after Beecher tells Chris he wants nothing to do him, Chris continues to pursue him. At the end of the series, despite everything, Beecher admits he truly loved Chris.
Dollhouse is a complex example. In the first season, Paul serves as a Deconstruction of The Dulcinea Effect, so while he is trying to save Echo, his actions come across as obsessive and weird at times, especially as he ignored a (seemingly) healthier romantic partner in Mellie. Eventually Paul and Echo get together.
Alpha gets a bit of this, too, with a lot less subtlety. He's Axe Crazy and obsessed with Echo, but in The Finale he's apparently reformed, and it's hinted he still loves her (though he would rather see her happy with Paul). So he apparently did really love her, despite his earlier psychotic actions.
In Pushing Daisies Ned impersonates someone from a temp agency so he can get a job at the same place as his girlfriend Chuck. She says it's sweet. Emerson, watching them says "He's stalking you."
Stephen Colbert's character on The Colbert Report thinks this way about his cousin Charlene, as best exhibited in his song on the subject: I'm right behind you now, Charlene, waiting, watching, oh so close...
Chuck Bass does a lot of stalking of Blair on Gossip Girl. Though sometimes he leaves it up to his PIs to do the actual legwork.
"There's a fine line between surveillance and stalking."
"Yeah, getting caught."
Played with on 30 Rock when Jenna is upset after her creepy stalker loses interest in her. Not because she loved him, but because his obsession with her fed her ego. Their "break up" is played for Does This Remind You of Anything?
Maynard: I don't think I can stalk you anymore. Jenna: No! You don't mean that!
Used with a twist in The Vampire Diaries. Stefan stalked Elena for a while after he saved her from the car crash that killed her parents, but this was for the quite sensible reason of wanting to find out if she was really his psychotic presumed-dead ex Katherine, and why exactly the two looked so similar. He didn't find out why, but was satisfied that Elena was a very different person, and realising he was starting to fall for her decided to stop the stalking and meet her properly.
Similarly, Elena's younger brother Jeremy was seemingly stalked by Anna - though she constantly made jokes about it. But her motives were pure - she actually wanted to kill him and feed him to her mother. She fell in love with him later.
On American Idol, contestant Paul Marturano wrote this song for Paula Abdul in which he sings about stalking her.
Ross on Friendsobsesses over Rachel in seasons one and two.
Averted in Stargate SG-1, where the ascendedAncient Orlin falls in love with Samantha Carter on another planet and follows her home. Carter explicitly tells him he's stalking her and that what they have is not a "relationship". She eventually warms up to him, but never falls in love with him in return.
Played for laughs with a one-shot WWI-era couple in a Doctor Who Christmas special.
The Doctor: How did you meet? You and Reg, tell me how you met.
Madge Arwell: He followed me home. I worked in the dairy, he always used to follow me home. He said he'd keep on following me until I married him! I didn't like to make a scene.
Used before that in "Blink" with another one-shot couple. Kathy gets sent back to 1920 by one of the Weeping Angels. Ben is the first person she meets; they later get married. Ben does have an interest in being curious and concerned about Kathy, since she's clearly not from around the area and is quite distressed.
Kathy: Are you following me?
Ben: Yeah.
Kathy: Are you going to stop following me?
Ben: No, I don't think so.
Family Matters. Urkel's behavior towards Laura borders on this, even though it's played for laughs and seen as annoying even at its worse. Though a handful of incidents—his locker combination being equivalent to her measurements, him asking for a lock of her hair—leave her genuinely creeped out, by the end of the series, they're together.
Music
The Romantics' "Talking in Your Sleep".
"Why Don't You Write Me?" by Simon & Garfunkel is downright creepy, and captures the stalker's mindset perfectly.
Monday morning, sitting in the sun
Hoping and wishing for the mail to come.
Tuesday, never got a word,
Wednesday, Thursday, ain't no sign,
Drank a half a bottle of iodine.
Friday, woe is me
Gonna hang my body from the highest tree.
Why don't you write me?
"Sometimes a Fantasy" by Billy Joel. The song is basically about a phone sex call, but the video is creepy because some guy seems to be forcing Billy into having phone sex, and watching. Guh?!
"End of the Road" by Boyz II Men is another popular wedding song. The singer's heartbreak masks the extent of his obsession, but the opening lines lay it out rather plainly:
Girl you know we belong together
I don't have time for you to be playing with my heart like this
You'll be mine forever baby
You just wait
"I Will Possess Your Heart" by Death Cab For Cutie has shades of this. Is it romantic or just creepy?
The music video for "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne. The dude doesn't even try to defend his girlfriend most of the time. Then again, it's apparently supposed to satire that exact attitude "It's okay that I follow him around and try to steal him from his girlfriend, because she's not as awesome as me!"
"Stalker" by Goldfinger. Essentially, it's a guy that is being stalked by a woman he knows is totally insane (although nonviolent), but he falls in love with her anyway. In the last verse, she sends him a letter, saying that she's been arrested and sent to prison for going through his mail, and he's flattered that she says she'll keep tabs on him. It's Played for Laughs, though, and isn't half as creepy as some of the other examples on this list.
The music video for "Obsessed With You" by The Orion Experience plays this trope for laughs. The entire band constantly follows a girl around, the lead singers even get into bed with her. She eventually kicks them out, but gets lonely and invites them back in, happily singing along at the end of the video.
Nickelback's "Follow You Home" came across this way. "You can slap me in the face and you can scream profanity/ Leave me here to die alone, but I'll still follow you home ..."
The "Weird Al" Yankovic parody plays up the stalker vibes, but in a less romantic way (and, being Weird Al, plays it so over the top it becomes genuinely funny); he replaces Swift's obsessive love song with a song about trying to avoid the paparazzi.
He's also got a straight-up version spoofing an American Idol song titled "Do I Creep You Out?", including such acts as saving chewed gum, carving the woman's name in his leg, and other decidedly creepy acts. Played for Laughs, naturally.
Grenade by Bruno Mars. He's probably supposed to come off as a love martyr, but it sounds like the guy is obsessed with her and won't leave her alone.
In Keith Urban's video for "Raining on Sunday," there's a scene where Urban is watching his girlfriend sleep. The opinions of women were split between "Aww," and "Eww."
Blondie's "One Way or Another" is about a woman who woman who claims she's gonna "get" some unknown man. Including driving by his house, following his bus, find out who he calls, etc. It's often used in commercials as a love song.
Also the songs "Hanging on the Telephone" and "Accidents Never Happen". Blondie liked this trope.
"Happy Together" by The Turtles is about a guy who only sees a girl but doesn't talk to her and imagines her day and night.
No. According to Word Of God, it's about a guy calling his girlfriend, and telling her how lonely he is away from her. He's so sad that by the end, he tries to change the subject by asking about the weather.
The Vogues' '60s hit "Turn Around, Look at Me".
The music video for Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" features Jackson following some random woman around a city block, singing about how much he loves her, and performing lewd dance moves. Rather than being annoyed or creeped out by this behavior, the woman in question is amused and the video ends with them embracing.
The song "I Never Knew You" by rapper Cageplays with this trope. The narrator in the song sees a woman and falls in love at first sight, and begins following her home. The entire song he's smitten with her, even though he know what he's doing is extremely creepy. Nevertheless, he's hoping that she'll have the same feelings for him once they actually meet. At the end of the song, though, it's heavily implied that he literally follows her all the way into her house and kills her (and possibly raped her beforehand as well).
A few Vocaloid songs are about stalking, like "Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance" and on a lighter note, "Spring! Cherry! Ninja!" On both, but mostly the former, she sure seems to think so...
"Isn't that a stalker?" "it's not! It's ninja!"
Rotten Girl, Grotesque Romance doesn't actually count as this trope, but straight-up Stalker with a Crush. Miku may be a stalker in that song, but this trope is where the feelings are actually requited by the stalked. Miku's lover is intensely creeped out by the girl who keeps following him and in one video murdered and mutilated a cat AND HIS FORMER GIRLFRIEND, sending him the remains.
"Every Breath You Take" by The Police is sometimes interpreted as being about this, but that one's really more of a straight-up Obsession Song.
"Right Behind Caroline" by Canadian indie pop singer Dan Bryk.
In "What'll You Do About Me" (originally recorded by Randy Travis and made famous by Doug Supernaw), the male narrator plays this for laughs with lines such as "You can call your lawyer, you can call the fuzz / You can sound the alarm, wake the neighbors up / There ain't no way to stop a man in love / What'll you do about me?" and "What in the world are you planning to do / When a man comes over just to visit with you / And I'm on the porch with a two-by-two / Lady, what'll you do about me?"
Newspaper Comics
For Better or for Worse: Anthony was introduced as Liz's secret admirer, following her around watching her every move while she was oblivious. It took her friend finally pointing him out for her to even notice him, after which they dated for a while, with nothing said against his questionable behavior. Of course, that was child's play to the turns the relationship took years later.
Literally child's play- Anthony and Elizabeth were children when they met, so the behavior was less "questionable" and more "shy nerdy little boy with his first crush."
Puppet Shows
Used in-universe in Mongrels episode "Nelson and the Human". While Neil's pursuit of a woman is clearly obsessive stalking, Nelson sees it as romantic and tries to come up with a scheme to get the two lovebirds together. In the end Neil shoots the woman and her boyfriend, then himself.
Video Games
In Assassins Creed Brotherhood, it is revealed in repressed memories that when Ezio initially met Cristina, after failing to get her attention on the first try, he proceeded to stalk her from the rooftops Le parkour style. This is glossed over of course because A) how else would you expect Ezio to use his family's natural skills to impress the ladies (don't answer that question) and B) because you proceed to save her from Ezio's arch rival whose intent kind of makes the stalking pale in comparison.
In Neverwinter Nights 2, Elanee reveals that she was assigned by the druid circle of Merdelain to watch over your character, from birth (the story timeline was designed assuming a human character). Depending on your character's reaction, a male character can either play this trope straight or play it more realistically.
In a variation, this seems to be a case of her falling in love with you while stalking, not stalking because of love.
In Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, the artificially intelligent computer, TEC-XX, expresses to Princess Peach (at the time, TEC's master's captive) that he has been overcome by strange feelings that compel him to continuously observe and eavesdrop on Peach. Peach's logical conclusion is that TEC is in love.
Let's not forget that TEC first experienced these "strange feelings" when he observed her taking a shower.
In Sonic the Hedgehog, Amy Rose basically follows Sonic across the ends of the earth.
Web Comics
Parodied in Sam and Fuzzy, where "Chronic Tragic Gothic Romanticism" is a common quirk/mental illness amongst vampires, which causes them to believe in this trope bigtime. The problem/good thing is, their "victims" do not, and sufferers of CTGR act so over-the-top that it's more 'pathetic' than 'creepy'.
Fangirls in the Official Fanfiction University series are often under the impression that their "Lust Objects" will like them back if they're just persistent enough. They generally get disabused of this notion with the application of extreme violence.
Subverted in"There she is". Granted Doki is so cute about it. Poor Nabi is still reluctant to start a relationship with her. This has more to do with the way society looks at inter species relation then Doki's actions.
In Red vs. Blue season 9, Church's plan is to find and rescue Tex from the memory storage unit they're both trapped in by going down levels within the unit, which sort of replicates the outside world (including, he hopes, replicating the memory unit, in an Inception "dream-within-a-dream" sort of way), hoping that eventually, in one of the levels, they can meet up and escape. Tucker points out that he's essentially chasing a dead girl and every time she escapes him, he either resurrects her or follows her down another layer, and says it's stalking. Church protests that it's not stalking, it's romantic, to which Tucker points out that "romantic" only happens in movies.
Western Animation
Looney Tunes: The Pepe Le Pew cartoons in the original series are the freakin' textbook definition of this trope — that includes the three where the cat Pepe goes after (known as Penelope today, but really, the cat either had no name or was named "Fifi" or "Fabrette") turns the tables on him.
Word Of God has said that the Pepe's odor is likely the only thing keeping him and Penelope from a true relationship. Indeed, Pepe usually doesn't even seem to know about his problem.
Despite giving a page quote, Up is an aversion. While Dug does follow Carl around, Dug is a talking dog that's only interested in the platonic relationship of a dog and his owner. Besides, this is pretty much how dogs display affection.
Heloise on Jimmy Two-Shoes is portrayed as having a yandere level crush on Jimmy, complete with a Stalker Shrine, and yet it remains one of her most sympathetic aspects. Then again, considering herotherpersonalityquirks, including working with Satan, this really shouldn't come as a surprise.
Like Heloise, Helga from Hey Arnold! takes her crush for Arnold to stalking levels at times (including the shrine) but is portrayed sympathetically. Although when she finally admitted her feelings to Arnold in The Movie he was more shocked than impressed, and that's without even knowing the details.
Averted / Played with in Total Drama World Tour—Cody does not appreciate Sierra's torturous obsession with him for most of the season, but is generally touched when she remembers his birthday when not evenhedid. Finally having him return her affection seems to prompt her to tone herself down. Somewhat, at least.
Lampshading this trope has been a staple of stand-up comedy for years. Usually with a reference to a restraining order as the punchline.
Wal-Mart once sold a men's shirt with "Some call it stalking, I call it 'love'" printed on it. In a red font. That looked like dripping blood. Cute.
Gavin DeBecker's book The Gift of Fear discusses this trope at length, with many examples of how the media often portrays stalking in a romantic or humourous light
As well as the Double Standard. When a man acts like this, it's romantic. When a woman does, it's pathetic.
Erotomania is a form of this, as discussed in the book I Know You Really Love Me. Typically the affected person believes that a secret admirer, usually a stranger, high-status individual, or celebrity, is sending secret signals of affection through significant glances or telepathy. The patient then returns this perceived affection with a flood of gifts and notes, believing that any denial of the relationship is a ploy to conceal their forbidden love from the rest of the world.
