following

so i rented a movie on the weekend, titled "the following", it was about (or is about, seeing as how i haven't finished it yet) a man who becomes obsessed with following people around the city (i assume it's new york, but not sure).

now as this may seem like the introduction scene in any ol' porn flick, it's precisely the opposite! he doesn't follow these people around in a sexual manner, but simply because he's interested/fascinated by PEOPLE in general.

so he follows close to people, always staying out of sight, never following the same person twice...simply to see where they go!! not wanting to see where they live or anything, or with the hopes of peeping through windows, simply to see where it is they're off to!! as the movie unravels, he ends up getting caught by this one bloke who turns out to be a thief! (he breaks into people's houses, not with the intention of stealing things, but simply to fuck with them by taking like ONE earing, or by planting panties in the drawers of a couple living together to stir up their relationship! he says he does these things to show people what they have...by taking it away!!! point being, this is another person who's interested in PEOPLE!!)

now i know i've written about voyeurism before, namely in my ode to "survivor", but this goes a whole other step...in the wrong direction!! what this man is doing might be deemed STALKING to the untrained eye...and to someone who doesn't see it as simply FOLLOWING people, might arrest him!! but i find it fuckin' fascinating!!!

let me ask you this; haven't you ever been walking down the street, let's say spring garden, on a busy afternoon, amongst all the pedestrians...spotted someone who appeared interesting, and wondered where they were going? or what they were doing? or where they were coming from? or maybe even, what they were thinking? and haven't you ever wanted to perhaps follow them, to see what exact destination they had in mind? now thinking about it, and actually doing it are two completely different concepts i know...and as i'm sure we've all thought about it, i sincerely hope (scary) that no one has actually DONE this!!

now let's suppose that we had the gaul to actually follow some hot guy we saw walking downtown some saturday afternoon...what would he hope to accomplish? would we be disappointed by the results? or would we be strangely turned on by it? all in all, i believe it comes from a fascination of human behaviour. just look at psychologists, isn't that what they do, only in the comfortable setting of an office, or a lab? they, just like the man in the movie, study the behaviours of others, because they too are interested and boggled by humans in general!! so why might we slap a big ol' CRAZY stamp on the forehead of the man from the movie, but think that behavioural psychology is totally legit? personally i think the *crazy* person who follows people around all day has more balls than the shrink who sits on a couch all day, rephrasing the last thing their patient said in the form of a question!!! he's not using lab techniques to gather his research, he's out there in the field of all the action, figuring it out for himself!!

i think that the reason it's a bit scary to think about following someone all day long just to see where they go, is because it could be happening to ANY of us...right now, even without us knowing!! whereas when it's in a professional setting, the patient/victim is aware of it! it's a little too close to home to imagine being watched, for no matter what the reason...whether by a sex-crazed maniac (ooohhh) or by a man simply curious as to what's on our minds.

so next time walking down spring garden, or along quinpool, or in the suburbs even, look over your shoulder to see if you see a familiar face in the distance, cause you never know who's lurking back there...and what motive they may have in mind...


scared yet?