A hot girl who follows you around and shows up at your door is a friend. An ugly girl who follows you around and shows up at your door is a stalker. A hot guy who gives you flowers is a romantic. An ugly guy who gives you flowers is a stalker.
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, Rape 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. The current 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.
Spoofed by Hayate the Combat Butler, of course. Nishizawa's brother gets a crush on Nagi (God help him)
Nagi: Hey you, stop stalking me.
Nishizawa's brother: I'm not stalking you, I'm just secretly following you!
Nagi: ....that's called stalking!
Although it's straight in that he's portrayed positively.
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.
Mizore of Rosario+Vampire is an odd example. While she starts out as a full-on Stalker with a Crush and tries to kill everyone just so she can be with Tsukune, she continues stalking him after her Heel Face Turn and is portrayed sympathetically. Then again, Tsukune is regularly creeped out by her behavior, so this is probably a subversion.
And lampshaded with her statement that she only keeps "stalking" him "because it's fun." And further in more than a few scenes where she turns up unexpectedly in flat out ridiculous places: The top shelf of a closet, standing outside the window — on the second floor, etc.
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!
Durarara!! also subverts the trope with Mika's stalking of Seiji, which is played as exactly as creepy and wrong as it really is.
Shuichi from Gravitation chases Yuki constantly, despite being rejected, verbally abused, and often being called a little brat. They eventually end up together.
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 "Trespasse". 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.
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.
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.
In Kissing Jessica Stein, Jessica ends up with the guy who, IIRC, 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 meant to be adorable, I suppose...
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."
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.
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.
The Phantom of the Opera, sort of. To this day, Misaimed Fandom continues to consider Erik's kidnappings, death threats, jealous attacks, actual murders and entire verses about owning Christine as the romantic murmurs of a vulnerable genius trying to find true love. Christine thought so too, but like a smart girl she wised up when heads started rolling. It doesn't help that most people know the story via the musical which framed Erik in a far more sympathetic light and kind of glossed over the majority of the really nasty stuff he did. It also changed the ending to make him less repellent. And he's always played by really handsome men too. What's up with that?
In the musical's sequel 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.
Phantom pulls double duty on this trope. 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.
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.
Live Action TV
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.
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.
The whole initial basis behind the relationship of Buffy/Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer has Angel stalking Buffy in the very first episode. He goes into full blown dangerous stalking when he loses his soul and becomes Angelus. He often watched her sleep, and drew very realistic pictures of her and left them for her. This wasn't shown as anything but creepy, and Angelus is unapologetically evil.
Angel's case is justified. His stalking of Buffy isn't motivated by attraction. Instead, he's ordered by the Powers That Be to follow and watch over Buffy in order to protect the Slayer. When he realizes that he loves her, he stops stalking her and starts interacting with her normally.
Also, Buffy did not find the stalking attractive. In fact, the first words she spoke to Angel in the Season 2 premiere are "You know stalking isn't really a turn-on for most girls." She fell in love with Angel after he showed his willingness to protect her. And because he was hot.
Spike fits this trope in season five, as he apparently waits outside her house long enough to get through what seems to be a pack of cigarettes. He also makes some sort of strange doll, as well as the Buffybot. A robot that looks just like Buffy, built for the sole purpose of having sex with him. Buffy is understandably disgusted by this. Spike does eventually get better in time, stops waiting outside her house, and even become disgusted with the Buffybot when it continues to flirt with him.
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 P Is 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.
Music
"Every Breath You Take" by The Police. The song is clearly about a creepy stalker, but most people assume it to be a beautiful, sweet, romantic love song. Fan Dumb indeed.
IIRC, They once said in an interview that they get really creeped out when couples come up to them and say "we danced to this at our wedding!"
The Romantic's "Talking in Your Sleep".
"Possession" by Sarah McLachlan is subject to similar Fan Dumb. In fact, Sarah wrote the song about an actual stalker fan of hers; she said writing it was very therapeutic for her.
"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?
"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.
Subverted by "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Do I Creep You Out?"[1]. A guy who looks disturbingly like Al is shown stalking the local coffee shop girl, who eventually becomes so disturbed by his behavior she calls the police. The song ends at a prison talent show.
His "Melanie" uses similar ideas ("I have to go through your garbage/just to learn more about you").
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 ..."
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.
"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.
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 Hatsune songs are about stalking, like "Grotesque 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!"
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 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.
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 Assassin's 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.
Web Comics
Parodied in Sam and Fuzzy with "Edwin" the vampire, who believes in this trope bigtime. The problem/good thing is, no-one else does and Edwin takes it to the degree that he'd be creepy if he weren't so pathetic.
Not just Edwin. This is such a common problem (apparently even before Twilight) that there's an entire clinic just for rehabilitating vampires who subscribe to this trope.
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.
Although, Timmy is often freaked out by her behavior and tries to avoid her (most of the time).
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 De Becker'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.
Unfortunately, many people who are socially incompetent or just don't get dating and courtship may end up unintentionally stalking someone that they have a crush on. They may have the best intentions and may even be making a sincerely conscious effort to be careful to not stalk them, except that they have a different idea of where the line is than most people do. They'll be like, "OK, I'll make an effort to follow the same route that this person takes through the hallway at school/work/whatever, but I will not follow them home because that would be stalking" and/or other things like that.
Many of these unintentional stalkers have learning/developmental/neurological disabilities, like autism and AD(H)D and a lot of the social skills programs designed for youngsters such as these don't bother to teach about proper conduct for romance and dating and may even suppress attempted romantic interaction even if it's as simple as holding hands. As a result of being treated like children who are only getting older in that they're getting into puberty and advancing educationally, but couldn't possibly have any romantic desires or crushes, they are probably made even more likely to do this. Being unable to naturally "get it" about proper romantic conduct and not being properly taught about it to make up for it, they may turn to romantic comedies, which are notorious for portraying stalking behaviors as romantic, to try and learn the rules of dating. Also, if they had had counselors and teachers stop them from making obvious and non-stalkery attempts to romance their crushes, they will most likely have learned that they aren't supposed to do these and must take covert measures to deal with having a crush on someone, which may include unintentional stalking behaviors.
