"Your chances of getting a mate you will like are even affected by your sex. If you are a girl your chances are not as good as if you were a man. This is largely due to the fact that a girl cannot gracefully take the initiative in stalking a mate who looks attractive to her." Ladies, stalking a man does work, sometimes.
The whole "he wouldn't stop calling me/stopping by my work etc till we went on a date and now we've been married 40+ years" was apparently a LOT more common back in the mid 20th century. Hard to imagine that happening today.
No, not really. There's a difference between persistence and stalking. Sometimes a very fine line, depending on the personalities involved. The reality is that some people enjoy being pursued, but often their signals can be subtle or misunderstood.
If it's been suggested or hinted at that you should stop (or outright told, "quit bugging me"), then continuing is stalking. You'd think everyone would understand that but evidently that's not the case.