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Stalker Rule #4
Stalker Rule #4: Information Management
To make things simple, it's like this: you want a lot of info, and you don't want to give out a lot of info in exchange for it. The value of knowledge (and secrets) decreases when more people know about it. Just look at the stereotypical stalker. He thrives on what is not common knowledge, which is why people get freaked out. If it were something a lot of people know, the situation wouldn't have been awkward. And perhaps the biggest mistake the stereotypical stalker makes is that he loses one of the most valuable pieces of information: that he exists, and that he knows what the other person doesn't want others people to know.
While Stalker Rule #1 lets you acquire information, rules #2 and #3 are proofs that there is something that hinders knowledge. They are, in fact, the gaps in what you know. Information Management means that you are able to fill those gaps and without a huge cost to you. For example, by asking say, a person's phone number directly, you are alerting to the other person that you are interested in their phone number. Whereas if you asked the a friend of the person involved what's the phone number they know by heart aside from their own, they might reveal to you the phone number you want to know and it leaves them "in the dark" since they can only suspect your motives since it wasn't a direct question (what's his/her names phone number). This also means that when trading information, you should divulge less and try to gain as much as possible. Hoard knowledge as you would money, but not too much that you don't spend it on anything. If were follow the "stalking someone" analogy (which is used here as an example because it is convenient and should actually not be practiced), you don't want to give out a hard-to-acquire info like who the crush of the guy/girl is (since that info is usually reserved for close friends) in exchange for something like his/her phone number of schedule, the former because it is probably listed in the telephone directory or a directory of a smaller scale (the school's directory, for example) and the latter because that can be observed using rule #1 and merely takes perseverance rather than actual hounding of info.
Other means of filling the gap short of actual facts like deductive reasoning and psychic predictions (if you know someone who can actually perform this with a certain accuracy) can be used but be warned: these are, after all, hypothetical propositions and there is always a chance that this manner of acquiring info is not always accurate. But still a viable method in the absence of a primary source of knowlege. Future rules will discuss these methods.
At times, it is worth feigning ignorance to acquire info, and partial knowledge is helpful in confirming data acquired from deductive reasoning and such. I mean you can call a person by another name and chances are, they will correct you. Of course if you only know the person's first name, in correcting you, they might also give out their last name, something you didn't know previously. And if you know the subjects likes to eat sushi, a person that might mention that person likes chocolate, sushi, and steak. Since you have established the fact that the person likes to eat sushi and this info corresponds to what the other person said, chances are the person is also right about the person liking chocolate and steak.
The more info you know and the less people know about it (in the sense of the info itself and that you know that info), the more resources you have. |