Regardless of where you are in your relationship — maybe you’ve been dating for a few months or maybe you’ve yet to go on your first date — following a guy on social media can be a dangerous game. Context is lost through text and there are too many scenarios that provoke unnecessary suspicions. If you are going to follow him, be careful — and consider these 15 reasons why you probably don’t need to (and really shouldn’t).
- You can’t handle all the “likes.” Who is this girl that likes every single picture he posts on Instagram? Even if she’s completely harmless (like a cousin), you can’t ask him about her without looking nuts, and the endless speculation will make you that way.
- He’s liking other people’s stuff, too. He hasn’t liked every single picture you have posted of your dog, but he sure has been liking all those selfies of that cute blonde… It’s easy to get caught up in all of this, but if it’s early in our dating relationship, it’s not a huge deal.
- A lot of it is no longer relevant. Maybe he didn’t completely destroy all evidence that he dated other girls before you and these remnants of the past will leave you questioning if he’s still stuck in it, but he probably just didn’t want to look through 5,000 pictures to find the three that might upset you.
- Despite what you think, not every status is about you. You’re so vain, you probably think his status is about you, don’t you? Get over yourself, not all of his thoughts revolve around you all the time.
- You get mad when the statuses aren’t about you. If he wasn’t sending the subliminal messages on Facebook to you, who was he sending them to?
- You read too much into everything. Calm down, girlfriend, sometimes a meme is just a meme. Just because he posted a pic of Maury Povich saying, “The lie detector determined that was a lie” doesn’t mean he’s accusing you of lying, and if you think it does, you probably are.
- There’s the dreaded relationship status. If you haven’t had the DTR yet, Facebook’s relationship status option could be the death of you. Maybe “it’s complicated,” but you don’t necessarily want everyone to know that. If you’ve got the label but his status still says single, it doesn’t mean he’s ashamed of you — maybe he just prefers a little privacy?
- You can’t resist checking it a million times a day. Remember when you used to have a job and a social life? Now you are bound to your device, obsessively looking for updates.
- It makes becoming a social media stalker way too easy. Back in the day, we would just do drive-bys to see if the guy we liked was home, but now with social media, all you have to do is wait for him to “check in” somewhere and you can be there in less than 10 minutes. What a coincidence!
- You want to poke him, but that’s just creepy. But actually you really just want to be poked by him. You know, like off of Facebook. In his room.
- When he doesn’t text you back, you know he didn’t lose his phone. It didn’t die, and he didn’t fall asleep because you can see he’s “available” for a chat. Some things are better left unknown.
- You don’t have the nerve to talk to him in real life. If you know this guy casually but don’t have the balls to strike up a conversation in person, you have no business friending him on Facebook. Grow a pair and have a real conversation in the real world before you take it to social media.
- It ruins the mystery if you haven’t met yet. If you’re in the preliminary stages of getting to know someone, maybe you should let that happen organically instead of researching everything you can about him online.
- If you broke up, it’s just a constant reminder of him getting on without you. Seeing announcements of your ex’s engagements and weddings and babies on the way is just painful. He’s moved on with his life, but there’s no reason that needs to be rubbed in your face on the daily. Do yourself a favor and unfollow him.
- You don’t actually know him, so who cares what he’s doing, anyway? This isn’t a contest to see who can get the most strangers as friends on Facebook. The smaller you keep your network, the less annoying posts you will have to see.
