According to the Random House College Dictionary the word Troll can be a verb or a noun. When used as a verb, troll applies to the act of fishing or singing heartily. When used as a noun, a troll is a magical giant or dwarf in Scandinavian mythology. In my neighbor's case he decided to go trolling for information that he thought might be useful to use against me.
We all accumulate knowledge about people we are familiar with. It's human nature. It becomes immoral when for whatever reason we decide that we will use this knowledge against someone we have targeted.
First of all a bit of background is in order. I'm 64 years old and disabled due to advanced arthritis of the spine and a moderate peripheral neuropathy in my legs which is a complication of the arthritis. The troll and I have been neighbors for about 10 years. At first he seemed half normal. He worked at the local community college in the facilities maintenance department. He also is a pretty decent lead guitar player. About 2 1/2 years ago he reached 20 years service working at the college and retired to pursue his dream of making millions in the music business. The fact that he was 55 years old at the time didn't seem to be a factor in his thinking. In fact he is good friends with a 62 year old Chicano drummer who grew up in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles County. Having the Chicano drummer in your band would have been a good decision but whoever said trolls make good decisions. Instead the troll organized an open mic on Saturday nights at a local coffee shop. He quickly met a couple in their 60's, with the man playing drums and the woman playing bass. To the troll it seemed like a match made in heaven. In fact, the new drummer, unknown to me at the time was a like minded troll to my troll neighbor. Further unknown to me, my troll neighbor had been blabbing to his new found troll friend all the details he knew about my life.
Up until this time my troll neighbor and me had a mutually beneficial relationship. However starting late in 2013 my troll neighbor came under the strong influence of his new drummer who also happened to be the front man for the band and my troll neighbor slowly started trying to change our relationship so all the benefit flowed to him and I got bupkes. It was easy for me to see. My troll neighbor was being coached by his troll drummer. They decided they needed a pickup truck to haul around their band equipment. A half normal person would either buy a beater pickup or rent a small van. They decided they would turn my pickup truck into their beater truck hauling around their equipment. Did they ask me about this plan? Of course not. I had already told my troll neighbor I wouldn't be lending him anything when he wanted to borrow my laptop computer and 2 channel digital mixing board. To get my truck they cooked up a scheme where my troll neighbor would plead poverty to me in order to borrow money from me and then when I refuse to lend them my truck my troll neighbor would blackmail me telling me that if I didn't lend them my truck I wouldn't get my money back. So late last year they hatched their plan only I refused to play. I had an ace up my sleeve in knowing that my troll neighbor has his pension, his wife works full time at the county library, and his mother-in-law has a nice pension plus social security. All told they are pulling down 50-60 thousand a year between the three of them. He still tried to tell me how "strapped" they all are. The fact is I'm the one who's strapped. I live on a thousand dollar a month social security check. I have a small bank account, I own my house, my truck, and a car. I knew right away I was being scammed but tried to politely tell him I couldn't lend him money because he refused to tell me when he would pay me back in full. Instead I got vague words about him selling stuff on e-bay and when his paypal account was recharged I would get my money back. Not good enough I told him, I need the money back in a week. Subsequently, when I played the troll game and told him I was starting a new business, he bombarded me with text messages asking me about my new business. He was trolling for information trying to find out how much money I had available to invest in my new business. He wasn't even aware he had been outed by me as a troll, so to speak. Subsequently, I had to tell him neither him or his wife were no longer allowed to attempt to contact me in any way.
Did I mention that my troll neighbor is a republican? A few weeks prior to him trying to implement his little scam, he pointedly asked me about my political beliefs. He phrased his question this way, "you're a liberal, aren't you?" I replied that I'm registered non-party but I don't vote for republicans any more although I did in the past. It wasn't exactly the reply he had been expecting. Regardless, he was acting out the internet meme that says liberal leaning people are stupid and can be easily conned. The truth is much more nuanced. The way I like to put it is that the easiest person to con is another con man.
Needless to say me and my troll neighbor don't speak to each other anymore.