Suppose you have a persistent admirer. It doesn’t matter that you live in a different city. Nor does the fact that you don’t know her. She finds out where you live, which university you’re going to and which courses you’re taking, then signs up for the same ones. She travels across the country to live near you. She is driven by the idea that she, and only she, will spend the rest of her life with you. She won’t take no for an answer.
What would you call this person — a stalker? Or the future queen of England?
This is the rumor of how Kate Middleton is said to have met Prince William — by planning it. She’d found out where William would be studying, then moved all the way from southern England to Scotland to enroll in the same courses. She even got a room in the same residence hall where he was living. Her every move seemed calculated to lead to their meeting, their marriage and her coronation.
William was definitely interested in her. But what if he hadn’t been? Would Kate have tried to “make him love her”? Would she have tried to “impress” him in some bizarre way?
The story may or may not be true, but it’s at least plausible. The world is full of crazy people. Judges are having to issue restraining orders all the time. The term “stalking” even comes from Britain, where it’s a serious problem.
A real stalker
In America, it’s no less serious. We are reminded of a day 30 years ago, when 25-year-old John Hinckley, Jr., made a desperate attempt to impress the object of his infatuation, actress Jodie Foster.
Through a gossip magazine, Hinckley had found out which university Foster was attending. He’d traveled across the country and got himself enrolled in one of her courses so he could meet her. He called her repeatedly and left notes for her. She said she wasn’t interested.
In the History section of the March Spotlight, I tell the rest of Hinckley’s story.
The short version, for this column, is that Hinckley identified with the title character in the film Taxi Driver, which he had seen at least 15 times. In the movie, a taxi driver struggles with two problems: people’s indifference to crime in 1970s New York, and an attractive woman’s indifference to him. He decides that he can solve both problems at once by shooting a political candidate.
Hinckley’s motivation for shooting President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, had nothing to do with Reagan’s policies. He had, in fact, tried to get Jimmy Carter before Reagan won the election. But that proves that he had planned the crime. He was a stalker — both of Foster and of whoever was running for president.
Reagan and his aides, luckily, survived the shooting. The president, however, was haunted by an awareness of his own mortality. This moved him to be an even stronger leader than he would have been.
The stories of the princess and the taxi driver are — thankfully — unrelated, but the moral is the same: we all need to be careful in our dealings with people. You never know what might happen.
