They say that pain shared is pain halved.

But shame shared?

That’s hilarious.

That’s why this grab-your-popcorn style fun story of Ariana Grande’s 29-year-old “stalker” (quotes because all he’s really doing is sending her random gifts and is probably harmless) didn’t end with the things homeboy bought her. Like a three piece hanging mirror set. Eight yankee candles. A cheap necklace. Kitten calendars. A rock from one of his travels….?

Mmkay… maybe I misjudged how not bad he sounds.

But the fun didn’t end there. The entertainment after-party reached far into the interwebs, with comments of personal shame shared. And while many of them were indeed cringe-worthy enough to make me turn rosier than usual just reading them, it was more because I’d remembered doing the same kinds of things – or at least something on the same blush-level – when I myself was a kid. But Ariana’s personal year round santa clause clearly isn’t a kid.

So, it led me to wonder – what makes a creeper a creeper?

I did some comment research to try and decide:

chickenmonger123 Oh man. In elementary school I didn’t have enough valentine cards, so I had some sort of decorated box to give to the last girl. Fake jewels and shitty decorations and all. I gave it to some girl who was just the most okay person I knew. I didn’t feel strongly about her either way. (I remember her name and I suddenly have a hankering to creepbook.) I was just brutalized for it by the class though. She looked at me like I was a toad too! In fairness I was a strange kid, but I just tried to be nice to the person who I didn’t have enough cards for. Jeez man old injuries. They still have a certain ache that doesn’t go away. I know I didn’t do anything wrong or deplorable, but I cringed for a long time.

Had he not added in the urge to creepbook part, I’d feel less reluctant about this e-hug I’m telepathically sending him to mitigate his childhood humiliation. But I’m glad he did, because it’s honest and we all do it and I’m just hoping his doesn’t lead to his “old injuries” makin’ him wanna cause some new ones on the second grader who snubbed him when he finds her.

And there’s more delicious retrospective, childhood shame.

Like CJ Clark’s tale of hunting down a middle school sweetheart who didn’t know she was a sweetheart:

Cj Clark In middle school, for over three years, I was in “love” with this girl who lived in my neighborhood, whose name I will not disclose. I went to Kohl’s and bought her a nice, simple, and elegant necklace. I looked her up in my copy of our middle school’s student directory to find her address, (Yes, we had those back then. They contained names, phone numbers, parents’ names, and addresses Shockingly creepy, in retrospect.) Anyway, I slipped the necklace into an envelope with a small note, and sent it through the mail. I waited for months for a response. I heard nothing from her about receiving anything until I asked her friend if she had said anything about it. Her friend snapped, “She said it was creepy, okay?!” My stomach sunk about 3 feet and I never spoke about it again until now, a decade later.

This story actually could have been far creepier than it sounds or seems for CJ.

Like if he’d done it now (years after middle school) all “Remember me?! I found you in one of those old timey phone books! ‘cause I live like a unibomber in the woods now and have tons of pictures of you lining my walls!” I’m pretty sure when I was in middle school, I was both on the giving and receiving end of some similar sorta phone book lurkery – if for no other reason than looking up boys we were obsessed with to prank call. Which brings to mind the fact that I feel like not enough girls have admitted to or shared their own Marky-Mark a la “Fear” tendencies, break-up self-embarrassment, or even just rejection-stings.

Don’t pretend like you’ve lived a life free of the occasional crazy-flu and/or ego-swipe.

The trick is to take a hint and quit while you’re a head(case).

(Still, I kinda wanna know what CJ’s note said. And whether it was written in blood.)

And, finally, this zinger:

GrimZombiex: Once in third grade I gave a glow in the dark rubber wrist band to a girl in my class that I was dating. She was a bitch to me so I asked for it back then broke up with her. We were only together for a week. After that I was then fired from my job as a teacher. ;D

#SuchZing!

So, I think that’s the answer – age, frequency, and the general dynamic determine how creepy you’re being in your attempts to reach out with your unique offerings. 29-year-old dude is old enough to know that compulsive gift-giving to someone unreceptive (not responding) isn’t gonna head anywhere. Add on the fact that they don’t even know eachother and have never met? MMeyp. That’s mental illness brewing and I hope he gets some help. Contrarily, most of the read-through-facepalm-fingers comments above seem to have taken place in middle school when, much like Lena Dunham diddling her kid sister, we didn’t know much better. Crossing the line meant little more to us than getting disqualified from a gym sesh of Fat Albert and inappropriate was something only your parents ever said. And it’s not like they were getting laid, ever, so what did they know? Why would we take advice from their crotchety cobwebbed crotches?

So… what’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever done? (Aside from creep-booking?)

As a writer, mine’s not that surprising. In fact, it’s the same thing I yell at my mom for doing:

Rapid-fire barrages of texts and emails before other-person has a chance to reply.


“I JUST…HAVE… TO… EXPLAIN MY…SELF… BETTER!!!!1”

MMMMmyeah.

This is a blanket apology to you men and women alike who’ve been on the receiving end of that.