Defining a stalker

What is the difference between a stalker, and a guy who's just really, really, really into you?

I went out for my first date with Tall Boy last Thursday at Flute. He meets all of the educational/income requirements (i.e. he has a job at an investment bank and a 4-year degree), and is also rather attractive. Politically and religiously, he's my clone, and we're both large fans of the Ginger Man and its ten billion beers brewed everywhere from Greenland to Iraq (yes, that's hyperbole but you get the point). Plus, he's emotionally available. A bit too emotionally available.

4 Jamesons-on-the-rocks later, our first date ended to the tone of:

TB: "When can we see each other again?"

PJJ (thinking): next week at about this time? Duh.

TB: "What are your plans this weekend? Tomorrow night?"

PJJ (taken aback): "Tomorrow's a friend's birthday party. Saturday I'm staying in because I've got a charity football match way up on 135th street on Sunday AM..."

TB: "Can I come watch?"

PJJ (diplomatically brushing away the red flag): "How about brunch after the match?"

Question 1: If you're on a first date with a girl and she mentions that she's playing in a charity football match so far uptown you might as well bring your sled dogs, do you come watch?

Friday night rolls around, and like most Friday nights after Hamptons season, this one ended at the Ginger Man, with high hopes of chatting up some cute British/Irish/Aussie ex-pats there for the beer selection. Except Tall Boy is there. My friend comments that he's stalking me. I mention that he might have just shown up at the bar on the off-chance that I'd be there since I mentioned I liked the bar, and that's not really stalking.

Question 2: Is this stalking?

Tall Boy then pulls me aside. He goes, "I have a question to ask you" in a voice that makes me think this question could just as likely be about the current situation in Darfur as it could be about why I opted not to wear thong underwear with my skirt.

I was wrong. He then plaintively asks, "Why won't you let me come to your match?"

Question 3: Why won't he just drop it? I don't want him to see me sans make-up or deoderant, smelling of Powerade and B.O. Charity football matches and other sporting events of small consequence are reserved for boyfriends who have seen you fart and puke, not men that you just met yesterday night.

Brunch rolls around at one of the ubiquitous genero-Italian places on or around Bleeker, followed by a walk through the Village (always quite the cultural experience). We have the usual getting-to-know-you conversation. We do have a lot in common, which sparks him to say on numerous occasions, "Wow, that's the 17th time you said something nearly identical to what I was thinking!"

Question 4: Why do people say this? Do they really think it's a turn-on?

I'm meeting him for dinner tonight at Pipa and then for a nightcap at the Cellar Bar. Don't get me wrong, I do like his company and I love looking at him. Many times I thought to myself, "Dear God! He could be The One!" But the full-court press has to stop.

Is he a stalker? Could he be a stalker? Could he become one? Should I be wary about letting him know where I live (as per suggestion from my best friend)? And what makes a stalker so different from a guy who just likes you a lot? Could John Cusak's character have ended up spending the night in prison for his boombox serenade if he didn't have a more receptive audience?

And then it hits me.

Stalking, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.