U of C nursing student transferred to Qatar campus after creeping crush online goes too far
By Jill Girgulis, October 12 2017 —
Third-year nursing student Monica Chambers will still be a University of Calgary student next year — just not at the Calgary campus — after her online stalking of “that adorable barista from Starbucks” spiralled out of control. Chambers narrowly managed to avoid harassment charges, but will be required to transfer to the university’s overseas campus.
According to Chambers, she said she was “only doing what everyone else does when they meet someone cute.”
“I didn’t want to fulfil the crazy stalker girl trope, so I limited myself to only checking his Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram — and only posts up to three years ago,” she shrugged. “The standard stuff, really.”
The barista, who asked to remain anonymous, reported that Chambers repeatedly tried to contact him using various social media platforms.
“By the eighth request, I was like, ‘Who is this person?’ I don’t even know her,” he said. “Because of her, I don’t wear a nametag at work anymore.”
He declined to provide further comment.
The original motivation behind Chamber’s search was to clarify the barista’s relationship status.
“It started with me wanting to see if he was single,” she explained. “Naturally, I tracked him down on Facebook. When that didn’t reveal anything concrete, I transitioned to scrolling through his Instagram. I kept a close eye on any feminine-sounding usernames that frequently liked or commented on his photos. Then I had a cursory look through their accounts, just to make sure they never appeared in any photos together.”
Chambers’s somewhat extensive search purportedly revealed that the victim was not in a relationship. But she didn’t stop there.
“After that, in order to figure out how old he was, I found his employment history on LinkedIn,” she said. “It turns out that his first job was at Taco Bell in 2010, so I tracked down the number of his former manager and called them to ask how young they hire. It’s 16, so that meant he’s most likely 23. I knew I could work with that.”
Chambers then proceeded to initiate contact with the victim, which is when authorities got involved.
“I wasn’t sure which app he used the most, so I tried them all,” Chambers shared. “I made sure to compose something charming-yet-clever for when I slid into his DMs.”
Unfortunately for Chambers, her extreme interest in the victim came too close to legal territory.
In order to avoid receiving a restraining order, a deal was struck between the two parties to have Chambers complete the remaining years of her nursing education at the Qatar campus, far away from the victim. She also must deactivate all of her social media accounts prior to the transfer.
When asked if she felt any remorse, Chambers’s response was unexpected.
“Nah, I’m okay with what I did. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. The times are changing. Without first thoroughly vetting a potential partner on all social media platforms, how else are you supposed to know if someone’s a serial killer or not? Or worse, a hipster?” Chambers rationalized.
It has been alleged that Chambers recently re-opened her MySpace profile. We can neither confirm or deny this fact, because no one uses MySpace anymore.
This article is part of our humour section.