Stalker Without a Crush

Cue cellos.

Let's say Alice and Bob are bowlers. Alice is amazing, frequently coming out on top of any league she enters. Bob however... could use some work. No amount of practice seems to help though. He's decided he has to have Alice teach him, by any means necessary. Hanging out in the bowling alley to watch her form was a bust. Directly asking her while she was playing just got him an apathetic "I'm busy". Maybe asking her at the bar would work better. No? How about when she is leaving work. Not that either? Why not see if she is more willing while she's with some friends? Or at home?

Not all stalkers are motivated by sexual or romantic desire. Some are non-romantically obsessed with someone, some want a favor from someone, some just want to stalk someone for the hell of it, or whatever other motive.

Compare and contrast Stalker with a Crush. Contrast because it refers to motives other than having a crush on someone, and compare because it can often resemble that motive for stalking through the "Does This Remind You of Anything?" approach. Also, sometimes a Stalker Without a Crush can develop a crush on whoever they were stalking over time.

Examples of Stalker Without a Crush include:

Comics

• Dilbert's Dogbert needed to do research on the customer base which consists of stupid rich people. In the next panel, he was revealed to be stalking a group of golfers.

Fan Works

• In the Pokémon fanfic "Xanthic Growlithe Contract", researchers would stalk a herd of ponyta and rapidash. This agitated them so much that the herd disbanded and did the pokemon equivalent of miscarrying all their offspring.

Film

• Stalker
• Following
• Throw Momma from the Train

Literature

• In the novel Strangers On A Train, Charlie Bruno stalks Guy Haines after murdering his wife, in order to try and make Haines fulfill his end of the Murder Swap he never agreed to.
• In the Belgariad series, anyone who wants to be a disciple of Aldur has to stalk him until he gets irritated enough to grant their wish, just so they'll quit stalking him. The situation may be reversed when he wants you to be his disciple.
• In the Douglas Adams novel The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, private dick Dirk Gently explains that he will pick a random car to follow if he gets lost while he's driving. He finds that while often he never gets where he intended, he always ends up where he needed to be.
• In The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Eddie Poe is one, following Vlad around for the perfect moment to snap a picture and expose him as a vampire, or rather an half-vampire.

Live Action TV

• In Bones, the season four episode "Man in the Outhouse" has Noel Liftin, a stalker who was previously on the show as a Stalker with a Crush. Boothe pays him $50 to "stalk" one of their suspects and get more information. He proves to be frighteningly good at it.
• An episode of CSI New York has a kid creepily following Stella around. When they finally confront him, they find out he thinks she's Mac's deceased wife, who gave the kid up for adoption 17 years ago.

Tabletop RPG

• Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition Oriental Adventures (1985) supplement. If an application to study with a martial arts master fails, the prospective student may begin courting the master, trying to gain his favor (e.g. by giving a small gift or offering). The hopeful student may continue until either they are accepted or they offend the master.

Video Games

• Throughout Batman: Arkham City, Azrael can be seen watching over Batman at several points in the story.
• In Touhou, Suika Ibuki and Yukari Yakumo are often portrayed as this, due to their powers (turning into mist and creating portals respectively).
• In The Legend of Zelda series, Ganon(dorf) kidnaps Zelda not out of attraction, but to extract the Triforce of Wisdom out of her.
• Silver stalks Lance in Pokemon HGSS in an attempt to get a rematch with him after their encounter in the Mahogany Rocket Hideout.
• In a bit of Ascended Fanon, Waluigi is now this to Luigi of Super Mario Bros.. His intentions are to make Luigi's life miserable.

Web Original

• In Minuscule, the small spider stalks the fly much as in the image above.
• Slender Man's MO. If there's a vlog series based on the mythos, expect to see him standing around in the background somewhere in a few episodes. If you can see him at all.
• 78MagnumXE of Encyclopediadramatica.ch, and his obsession with wanting to dispose of Nathan, he'll do anything to get rid of him even if it kills him, which eventually it will.
• Heeeyyy, Angry Grandpa! This is Mustdestroyall!

Western Animation

• In The Simpsons, Burns goes broke because of his Yes-Man underlings, and is convinced that hiring Lisa would get him back on track what with her integrity. However, Lisa refuses to work for him, because she is convinced he does not deserve to be helped. Burns, in turn, follows her around in a very stalkerish manner, begging that she take the job.
• In Danny Phantom, Vlad may be a Stalker with a Crush for Maddie, but he is equally willing to spy on and learn everything possible about her son Danny, who he'd just love to have as a son himself.
• Pinkie Pie becomes this multiple times in My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, but given that she's stalking her friends it's fairly similar in themes to the stalker WITH a crush.
  • "Griffon The Brush-Off" has Pinkie Pie following Rainbow Dash around a fair bit, but in a fairly cheerful way. Dash finds this slightly annoying at worst, but also amusing.
  • "Party Of One" features a less pleasant variety when Pinkie's friends seem to be making excuses for why they aren't coming to her latest party. She puts on a "disguise" to spy on them, then Dash, who can tell it's Pinkie but not that she's trying to disguise herself, says "hi Pinkie" and then It Gets Worse; Pinkie chases Dash very aggressively and angrily, loudly asking what the real reason Dash doesn't want to come to the party is, and when Dash hides in Applejack's barn, Pinkie practically interrogates Applejack about why she's in there. It turns out they were only avoiding her to throw her a surprise party and didn't want the surprise ruined.

Real Life

• Predators tend to stalk their prey, such as the cat stalking the squirrel in the page image.
• Stalking enemies for intimidation's sake is not uncommon.
• Private investigators can be hired to do this.