Breaking Up With My Stalker

Dearest,

I'm afraid it's not working out.

A number of people suggested it was a bad idea to date my stalker in the first place. I saw a devoted individual with a love of slimming black outfits, good camera skills, and an affinity for late night walks in my shrubbery. Everyone else said that your dedication to investigating my garbage, watching me sleep, and collecting the hair from my hairbrush portended darker things. Darker I might be able to deal with, but if anything, I feel like we've fallen into a rut.

Let's be clear, I'm not trying to change you. I like how you call me late at night from the other room and breathe heavily while I vent about my day. While my girlfriends are suffering through Monday Night Football, I'm free to watch The Bachelor as you sit patiently pressed against the living room window. Honestly, I even like having my hairbrush cleaned on a daily basis.

But, other parts of our relationship seem tired. Getting notes on the bathroom mirror in lipstick was exciting when you wrote things like:

I'll get you!

But it's devolved into an expensive and frankly messy way to communicate things that would be better suited to a post it, like this morning's:

I'll get you:
Bananas
Eggs
Milk
At the store, anything else?

I thought the constant videotaping would give us lots of material for home movies, but it's really just a reminder how boring we are. Seeing hours of myself eating and sitting around makes me feel like I'm wasting my life. Am I really that dull?

Plus, it's been two years. I think you can stop dining under the table and in the closet. You're a stalker. I get it. But the constant peeking and leering is tired. Sometimes I don't want to be admired lustfully by a man in black, I just want you to pass the salt.

Maybe I'd be more inclined to overlook these things if I felt more certain that we had a future. But for someone who was devoted enough to pick through my trash when we met, you've been awfully slow to produce a ring. Despite all the bad things everyone said about you when we got together, none of them could argue when I said that at least you were committed. But I guess I jumped the gun. As soon as I stopped calling the police and invited you in it seems like some you lost a little bit of the fire. If you're going to follow me around, I need to know that it's long term. Apparently your obsession with me isn't enough to get us down the aisle.

Lastly, and I hesitate to bring this up, but I found some of Karen Underhill's garbage in the study. I'm not saying that you put it there, I don't know how it got there. But even though things aren't going to work out between us, I hope you'd have the decency not to stalk one of my friends. Karen and I go way back and I don't know how we could continue being friends if I knew that you'd suddenly become more interested in wearing her used coffee filters as hats instead of mine.

Don't call unless you plan to propose and swear off lipstick as a writing utensil.