Stalking: when does “persistence” stop being interest and become a violation of boundaries?

Persistently pursuing someone is often presented as a sign of love or strong interest. A message left unanswered is followed by a second one. Contact continues despite the lack of response. Someone repeatedly turns up where the other person is, or systematically follows their activity on social media.

But when does persistence stop being interest and start to violate the other person’s boundaries?

Stalking refers to repeated, unwanted behaviour that may cause a person fear or a sense of threat. It can include persistent messages or calls, unwanted appearances, monitoring someone’s daily life or online activity, sending gifts and, in more serious cases, threats, damage to property, or physical and sexual violence.

Stalking is a serious form of interpersonal violence and can have significant consequences for victims’ mental health and everyday lives, such as anxiety, depressive symptoms, post-traumatic stress and difficulties in day-to-day functioning.

When persistence is read as “romantic”

One of the problems around stalking is that some behaviours can be underestimated or normalised. Persistent pursuit may be read as proof of love, while constant contact or monitoring may not be seen as worrying at first.

These perceptions do not form independently of our social and cultural environment. Our beliefs about relationships, gender roles and personal boundaries can influence when a behaviour is recognised as a violation and when it is excused or played down.

And this matters, because when a behaviour is presented as “romantic persistence”, it can become harder to recognise the experience and distress of the person on the receiving end.

What did the research in Greece and Cyprus show?

A study of 415 Greek-speaking adults examined whether empathy and attitudes towards gender roles are linked to attitudes that tend to excuse, minimise or accept stalking behaviours.

One of the most important findings concerned attitudes towards gender roles. People with more egalitarian views of the roles of men and women were less likely to hold attitudes that excuse or minimise stalking.

The relationship with empathy was more complex. It did not appear that “more empathy” leads in a simple, uniform way to less acceptance of stalking. Different aspects of empathy were linked to these attitudes in different ways. The ability to engage mentally and emotionally with other people’s experiences was linked to lower acceptance, while intense personal distress in the face of emotional tension was linked to greater acceptance of such attitudes.

This is important because it reminds us that empathy is not only about feeling intensely, but also about how far we can understand another person’s experience without our own emotional reaction getting in the way of seeing it.

What role do age and gender play?

In the initial comparisons, women showed higher empathy than men and lower acceptance of attitudes that support or excuse stalking. However, when empathy and attitudes towards gender roles were examined together, the difference between men and women no longer remained an independent factor.

Age, by contrast, remained significant: older age was linked to greater acceptance of attitudes that minimise or excuse stalking. This finding may reflect, among other things, generational differences in how personal boundaries, relationships and gender roles are understood.

Why does the way we perceive stalking matter?

Stalking does not always begin with behaviour that everyone would immediately recognise as threatening. It can start with actions that, seen in isolation and out of context, seem less worrying.

That is why it matters to move away from:

“Maybe they’re just very interested?”

or

“Maybe the other person is overreacting?”

towards questions such as:

“Is the contact wanted by both people?”
“Are the other person’s boundaries being respected?”
“What happens when the other person says or shows that they do not want this contact?”

Awareness and prevention, then, are not only about recognising extreme behaviour. They are also about how we understand consent, personal boundaries, rejection and the other person’s right not to want a relationship or contact.

The results of the study suggest that cultivating empathy and challenging stereotypical attitudes about gender roles can be important elements of educational initiatives and of prevention and awareness programmes around stalking.

About the research

This article is based on the scientific study “Stalking-Supportive Attitudes and Their Association with Empathy and Gender-Role Attitudes: A Study in a Greek-Speaking Sample” by Marilena Mousoulidou, Erietta Constantinidou, Andri Christodoulou and Eleni Theoulaki, which has been accepted for publication in BMC Psychology in 2026.