Some thoughts about what "Online Stalking" means

I have been using social media for a while and it seems pretty common people use the term stalking as just visiting another users profile and learning about information like their "About me" and seeing their enlarged profile picture and their past posts. I have often found people write in their bio, "Hi stalker, like this status to show me your presence" as a lighthearted way to greet the person visiting their profile and wanting to know them.

So I have been recently sent through a difficult isolated time for mentioning I 'stalked' my ex crush, I felt excluded from the human realm. That's why I wanted to talk about what stalking means to me.

I once discussed with my computer science peers why social media's don't just show who visits our profile. And read some blogs on it. Apparently people do a huge amount of stalking in the internet and it would be embarrassing for them if the other person found out how interested they have been in the other person. A site's use will decrease if they decided to show its users who is following their profile, because users won't like to give the information away about who their secret crush has been.

There are lots of privacy options in the internet, people knows what to make public and what to make private. If something is public then no harm in accessing that information, the person wants people to know this. Celebrities want their followers to send them love and supportive comments when they post.

So I suppose the term stalking isn't as bad at social media. I just don't understand why someone will take this as offensive and thoughtlessly hurt me in a bad way. I feel humiliated and violated. I feel like they are allowed to share whatever they wish to and I am not. That I am less than them. And I don't even want to mention how I felt like they were my own people after I listened to them and shared support. And the oneness of the shared emotions I felt with them. Such beautiful feelings I had to have some comrades in the daily struggles of life.