Summertime

In our hemisphere it’s summer. Hard to fathom if you look out my window. It’s raining. Again. And it’s never men, I can tell you that.

Summer means…HOLIDAY. It’s vacation (another word for the same thing, whoever invented thesaurus?) time and in some countries people have oodles of time off. Scandinavians: three weeks. Nope, I’m not kidding. It’s not unusual for Scandinavians to go byeeeeeeeeee at work and sod off for 3 weeks. And still getting paid. They mosey about in a very unproductive manner and moan about the bad weather they’re having. But let’s face it, if you have 3 weeks paid holiday you can’t complain about the weather…of course you can!

Now, three weeks…what to do, what to do. You can laze about. Niiice. You can spend time with your family (overrated, granted, but nonetheless it’s what some choose to do). Or you can redecorate if you’re insane, bored beyond belief and/or too rich to know what to do with your money.

The cheap alternative is…

STALKING

All in good taste, naturally.

First, choose your subject. To maintain interest in the task for more than 2-3 days, you need to find a subject that’s within reach. And yet on a completely different social level so that you will never ever get a chance to gag, bound and drag him home and chain him to your bed.

Second, you should make up your mind what kind of stalker you wanna be.

The Insane and Uncompromising Type:
You need to buy a pair of SUV like trainers for this – expensive, expensive, expensive. You’ll be living rough. Tracking, tracing, hiding, starving. Out there, in all sorts of weather.

The Lazy Type:
Stalk by email. It’s fast, comfortable and you don’t need any equipment apart from your email address, your broadband (come on, everybody has broadband these days, anyway, right?) and the subject’s email address. This is why it’s important to choose a subject within reach.

If you’re a bit like me, you’ll go for Stalk by Email. I’m as lazy as they come. Luck will have it that I have already found a matching subject, I have broadband and an email address and more importantly: I know his email address.

UniCorn: What are you doing?
FridayNext: Hey, I didn’t see you sneak up on me!
UniCorn: Not sneaking – do you like my new trainers? – just wondering what you’re up to. You’ve been quiet for some time. Very unlike you.
FridayNext: Nothing, really. Just….hanging out.
UniCorn: Oh, honey. That’s a nasty twitch you got there. Your right eye is jumping all over the place.
FridayNext: Really? Hadn’t noticed.
Silence.
FridayNext: Will you be leaving…
UniCorn: on a jet plane? No, don’t think so. Like to hang out a bit.
FridayNext: Oh.
UniCorn: Look, I know what you’re up to. The cat’s out of the bag.
FridayNext: Meow?
UniCorn: Not cute, sweetie. You need to let him go.
FridayNext: What?
UniCorn: Let him go. If he’s not interested in you, let him go. He doesn’t deserve you. You’re so much better than that. And don’t look at me that way. I’m serious.
FridayNext: He likes me! He just doesn’t know it. Yet.
UniCorn: Sweetie…
FridayNext: Stop sweet talking me.
UniCorn: Fact: he’s got a girlfriend
FridayNext: Right, so he’s not gay. That’s a start.
UniCorn: I’m sure that he won’t leave her. And if he did, you don’t want a man like that
FridayNext: But he’s got eyes
UniCorn: I know…
FridayNext: and hands
UniCorn: Right
FridayNext: and teeth – he’s got TEETH, Uni. Teeth.
UniCorn: Y’know, most men have all these features…
FridayNext: He gave me a nickname. That’s something!
UniCorn: *sighing* He called you Frrrrrrrrrriiiiidaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy. It’s not really a nickname. It means…
FridayNext: What?
UniCorn: Well…
FridayNext: WHAT?
UniCorn: It means that he’s about to lose it and if you go on, soon you’ll be able to spell restraining order.

OUCH!

FridayNext: Okay.
UniCorn: You’re alright?
FridayNext: I’m fine.
UniCorn: I’m sorry, sweetie.
FridayNext: I know.
UniCorn: Wanna hang out?
FridayNext: Erm…no. I’m okay. I just….I just need some time on my own.
UniCorn: Okay. Text me?
FridayNext: Sure. Always.

And she’s out the door as quietly as she came in. I need to change the locks. I should never have given her a set of keys.

Lesson 1:
The first email:
Dear Mr. J-Man. Do you remember me from a meeting two months ago? You came over with Mr. Ace to discuss design strategies and I may have bombarded you with questions about…

It’s important that you keep a light tone of voice. If you can pretend to be blondish and chesty it can only help you to come closer to your subject. Especially if your subject is a man.