Stop stalking your ex on facebook

By JOAN BARSULAI

Three weeks ago, while Susan was seated at her desk at work rushing to meet a deadline, while chatting on Facebook at the same time (like many of us like to do), she received a friend request from her ex, whom she had not laid eyes on in more than a decade. You might wonder what the big deal was about that, except that this is the man who dumped her in the most despicable manner, and made it very clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

So, you can imagine the utter sense of validation she felt at that moment, beholding a friend request from him. But even as the rush took over her, common sense prevailed, and she went ahead and did the only sensible thing she could think to do at that time: She deleted his friend request.

Even though it had been well over a decade since the break up, a wave of excitement engulfed Susan in that instance; she felt such great validation for rejecting him like he had her those ten years ago. But once the excitement waned, and with it the self-importance of having prevailed by deleting his request, curiosity got the better of her.

A few weekdays later, after lunch, a quiet but disarming thought crept into her mind: “I wonder what he is up to today.”

And so she cautiously typed his name on the Facebook search link, and found that his profile had no privacy settings, which meant she could fully access his page. Emboldened, Susan went ahead and checked his latest update, and then another one, and another one. Before she knew it, her nosiness had prevailed, and she was clicking on his friends’ pictures, especially the women — and wondering, with slight disdain, whether these were all ex-lovers, like herself.

The curious snoop also got an inkling of what her ex’s life had been like the past few years. But even with all the information she had, she kept coming back for more. She was like a moth to a flame: She knew these were all useless and unhealthy details, and yet she could not help herself.

Before you start judging Susan, admit that the good majority of you reading this right now do this. Oh, yes, you are right here at the bottom of the totem pole with our Susan, cyber snooping on your ex.

What is especially difficult to understand, for the love (or lack thereof) of exes, is why it is so hard to stop this habit. What is clear is that this club has numerous members. Ask your colleagues and friends and, if they are honest, many of them will admit that spying on their exes online is one of their secret guilty pleasures.

So, the question today is this: Why do we keep going back, over and over again, to torture ourselves with images of people that now appear to be living a cleaned up, healthier version of themselves with other people?

You clicked on a new picture a few days ago, of her at a romantic dinner with him at a restaurant that was once your special place. It cut to the bone, but here you are again today, looking through her profile, torturing yourself with newer, flashier and fancier details of her life.

Isn’t it painful enough to keep looking at images of his recent fabulous wedding, the pictures of the perfect new family (that you believe should have been yours) splashed all over his page? Haven’t you seen enough of the new woman he treats better than he did you, evidenced by images of a visit to the trendiest boutique in town to refurbish her already fabulous wardrobe, when you couldn’t even get him to repair the fridge?

This depraved list could go on and on until the cows come home, during which time you will still probably be reading his updates, and checking his new girlfriend’s status update, for the millionth time.

The funny thing is that even the lucky few of us who establish, with such glee, that we are way more successful and happier than our exes are, still keep visiting these people’s pages over and over, as if to keep validating ourselves with the fact that we are better off without them.

A recent study conducted by Dr Tara Marshall, titled Facebook Surveillance of Former Romantic Partners, found that the more time you spend on your ex’s Facebook page, the more psychological distress it causes, the greater the desire for your ex and the more difficulty you face in moving on.

The study finds that people use Facebook to monitor the activities of current romantic partners, and as many as one-third use it to keep tabs on former romantic partners. Let us bear in mind that there are more than 1.2 billion active users of Facebook at the moment, so when we do the math, there are possibly millions of users stalking their exes on Facebook daily. It is nothing short of creepy.

Dr Chris Hart, a psychologist and relationship expert, warns against this addictive habit.

“The worst thing about Facebook is that it keeps us exposed to someone we should stay away from. It is sort of like having an affair at work and then going back home and feeling bad about it,” he says.

But if it has been more than a decade since you last saw your ex, and you are only checking out his profile, like millions of other users do their exes’ profiles, so surely it means nothing, because you do not particularly care for him or her, right?

“If you did not have feelings for your ex you would not be regularly be visiting his profile, now would you?” Hart posits.

He states that this stalking reveals subconscious feelings that Susan, and many other millions of stalkers out there, may be harbouring for their exes.

“I suggest dumping Facebook for a full week to break this nasty habit,” the psychologist says.