Would you let that beard into your home?
Today’s guest blogger is Farzad Farzaneh, and he thought he was the only one in Sweden with that name. Until he Googled himself. And started a blog.
Stalking is a phenomenon spontaneously pretty gross. The first image that comes to me when I hear the word is a sweaty and wheezy man standing in some bushes that gets off on looking into a lit kitchen observing his victims doing everyday things:
23:13: She scratched her head.
23:22: She looks in the fridge, but doesn’t take anything out.
23:58: She gets naked and lies down under the covers.
Or the stalker is an evil person with evil motives. Like an ex-boyfriend with too much testosterone who’s dropped everything to stalk his former girlfriend. We have seen it on films, we don’t like it, we might even be disgusted by it. Most would agree: a stalker is a disturbed person in need of help!
But there can also be more or less harmless and actually pretty pleasant motives that drive us to stalk someone. It could actually be about loving the spontaneous and adventurous in life. The driving force can of course be to step out of the gray daily routine and going with your impulses. Going all-in can be a little scary. But go for it man.
This spring I learned that there’s a man living just a few blocks away from me that has the exact same name as me. And when I’m not called Anders Andersson but Farzad Farzaneh! An incredibly rare name in Sweden. The fascination made me want to know more about and to get closer to this man. I followed my intuition and allowed myself to be a little crazy. At the risk of treading ever so lightly on his toes, I initiated a project that was about finding out more about him and then seeing where that’d lead me. I gave the project a name and with the first 365-post in mind I started a blog as well - as a way to keep a record of my work. One day my project ceased to be about spectating. It was when my "victim" (an extremely ungrateful word in the context) got in touch with me and told me to stop exposing his life on the Internet. Since I’m only a little crazy, I did as he said and censored most of my posts. It's all about stalking with style and dignity. But the blog is up and I got a promise of having coffee together. How that went, you can read about here.
Required time:
1 week or more
Cons:
The border between cool and uncool is sometimes extremely thin. You can lose sight of yourself and in the worst case scenario your behavior can be perceived as harassment and could be reported to the police.
Pros:
Your life becomes an exciting TV-series of events and if you play your cards right you may have gained a new friend by the end of it.
