Here’s the wrong way to go about getting a girl

Is this guy a romantic or a stalker?

Some guy in Australia has launched an online campaign to find some girl he saw in a supermarket.

According to an article in Mashable:

Brok Neilson, from the Gold Coast in Queensland, thought he had experienced love at first sight when he spotted a mystery brunette from afar in the fruit and vegetable section of Woolworths on Monday. What began as a Facebook post, soon spiralled into an online campaign to reunite the pair.

He then took a candid photo of this woman from behind and posted it on Facebook.

Although some find the gesture romantic, the ordeal has faced heavy backlash from people who don’t see the rosy side of capturing and sharing a photograph online of a woman who didn’t give her consent.

So this guy took a picture from a distance but didn’t think to approach? If you skip to the 4:05 mark, comedian Pete Holmes sums it up perfectly:

Some of the reaction on social media as the story went viral:

.@9NewsAUS why are you and Woolworths encouraging cyberstalking? https://t.co/QXHUJwOddH?

— Bernard Keane (@BernardKeane) April 13, 2016

This isn't romantic it is creepy. https://t.co/ax4cyjC7MK

— Sally Whyte (@sallywhyte) April 13, 2016

Hi @woolworths and @Channel9 if a stalker asks you to find their victim for them you are supposed to call the police not put them on TV.

— Tweety McTweetface (@jurassic_snark_) April 13, 2016

Anthony de Mello, an Indian Jesuit priest, wrote in a book called Awareness that “we see people and things not as they are, but as we are.”

Basically, this Australian guy sees a women he’s attracted to, and he projects an identity onto her that is probably not consistent with who she actually is.

For example, the 90s Nickelodeon show Hey Arnold involved a storyline where the main character, Arnold, had a huge crush on Ruth, a girl in his school. But then when he actually had a chance to hang out with Ruth, her personality was off-putting to Arnold, and his crush was broken.

So let that serve as a warning to anyone harboring an intense crush, or anyone who sees someone in a supermarket and quickly develops one.

And according to an article in The Debrief on the subject of getting crushes: “Our limbic brains haven?t evolved since two million years ago, and in those days, the kinds of things that normally would have been attractive would be a guy with resources, so your kid would have food and a better chance of survival.”

For men attracted to women, those instinctual attraction cues tend to be more physical and based on appearance. Knowing the science might also help: