There is a whole lot of power at our fingertips when it comes to looking up things on the Internet, which includes doing a little behind-the-scenes snooping/stalking of the men who are in—or who we want to be in—our lives. The urge to go HAM with Google searches, Twitter timelines, and Facebook walls is realer than ever, however before you place your finger on the keyboard and get to typing yourself into an emotional breakdown, let me remind you of three reasons you need to think before you click.
- You’re going to see something you don’t like: This just a given, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see something bad, but we can guarantee a side-eye will ensue as a result of some poke, like, comment, tag, wall post, friendship, status, photo, retweet, hasthag, or anything else under the social media sun that you know will set you off—possibly without reason. If you’re looking for proof of something, you will find it and likely not know what to do with it, which brings me to my second point.
- You’re going to jump to rash conclusions: That’s because you don’t know any better. Our social media presence is like one-tenth of who we really are so when you see some girl liked your guy’s status or made a funny comment, you’re going to get all in your feelings about who she is and what she means to him when she really might be his best friend, cousin, sister, or any other platonic associate. Social media stalking is almost completely based on reading between the lines and making assumptions and we all know what that does.
- You can’t do anything with that information: Sure, you could cut the guy off without explanation because you saw he checked in to Chipotle at 6:05 when he told you he didn’t eat until 6:30, but the thing about e-stalking is you can’t admit you did it. Therefore, anything you find is basically background information that you can’t bring up in conversation and that you’re going to have to warn yourself not to bring up in an argument. The minute you try to bring up something you saw online, you’ll pretty much be tuned out or just look like the crazy e-stalker that you are. #NoBueno.
