Are You A Stalker? By David Wygant

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you find yourself calling people three, four, five times . . . even after they haven’t returned a phone call?

• How about the endless text messaging or emailing to someone even when there’s no responses to any of them?

There are many different ways that someone can be a stalker. There’s the scary Glenn Close type from “Fatal Attraction” who has a penchant for boiling bunny rabbits and jumping out of bathtubs. There’s the creepy ex against whom you have to get a restraining order to stop them from coming over to your house.

Then there is the form of stalker no one talks about. It’s usually the man or woman who doesn’t understand that when a person does not respond after the second phone message, text message or email, that the person is no longer interested.

I’m not very big into rules, but there is one by which I think everyone should abide: If you’ve left a few messages for someone and they haven’t called you back, then (borrowing from an old dating book) he’s (or she’s) just not that into you.

As Miranda on “Sex & The City” once told a group of women sitting on the library steps, if you leave a couple of messages for a man and he doesn’t call you back, he’s just not that into you. The problem is that they should have left it as a “Sex & The City” episode.

That book had one piece of good advice. The rest of it is annoying.

Plain and simple: If you’re a man who leaves a woman a few messages and she doesn’t call you back, you’re done.

If you text her several times and she doesn’t respond, you’re done. Technology didn’t stop working. Her fingers simply stopped responding to you.

If you email someone a few times and they don’t respond, you’re done. The spam filter that wasn’t there before did not just magically appear.

So now let’s get it right. The term is no longer “he (or she) is just not that into you.” The new term is “you’re done!” Finished. Done. End of the game – no two minute warning and no instant replay. You’re done.

Protect your dignity and walk away. You don’t want to be stalking the sidelines at the raving Tom Coughlin, nor do you want to look as confused on those sidelines as Wayne Fontes used to look when he coached the Detroit Lions.

You’re Done! Anything past a few messages, and you ARE a stalker. There are plenty of people to date. Don’t ever get caught harassing someone who does not want to date you.

Now repeat after me: If someone doesn’t call me back after several tries, I’m done. I’m as well done as a Jimmy Dean sausage from a Cracker Barrel roadside restaurant deep off I-95 in North Carolina.

I’d love to hear all of you share one of your stalker stories, whether you were the stalker or the one who was stalked.

Remember, it’s not necessarily negative if you’ve called someone once too often. We’ve all done it in our lives. So, share with us your favorite stalker or stalkee story.