I Found His Secret Instagram Account & Discovered Someone I Didn’t Know

I never imagined the guy I was dating would be shady enough to have a secret Instagram account but he did—and it revealed a whole other side to him I never knew existed.

  1. He was a different person on there. He was trying to be someone completely different on this second, secret IG account. He didn’t like sports, he was all about posting gym selfies (gross), and he just seemed… darker. All of his weird photography made me wonder if I even knew him at all.
  2. He had a whole different set of connections. People who were following him on this IG account seemed to be different from those he had on the account I actually knew about. What’s up with that?
  3. I couldn’t understand why he had to be so secretive. Why would he have given me his other IG account instead of this one? What was the big deal? He had to be hiding something from me but I just didn’t know what. Then I saw it: he was flirting with a ton of women who posted comments on his sexy selfies. He was lapping up all the attention, which explains why I didn’t know about this account…
  4. He was leading a double life. It made me sick to my stomach that I had no idea about this other virtual life of his. He was going online and talking to other women behind my back. I felt so angry and sad.
  5. I tried not to take it personally but it definitely was. At first I thought maybe he’d started this account long before I came into the picture, but then I saw he’d started posting images shortly after we’d started dating. Coincidence? I think not. He couldn’t be his usual flirty and sleazy self when I was looking. He was sneaky as hell.
  6. I confronted him about it, though I wasn’t completely innocent. I didn’t want to just break up with him without letting him know how upset I was so I told him I saw his Instagram account. I wasn’t completely innocent though. I snooped and I’m not proud of it but I’d had a weird feeling for ages that he wasn’t up to any good so I checked out some IG notifications that I saw on his phone. They led me to this secret IG account and I had to tell him about this. I had to come clean so I could understand why he’d keep that account—and so much of who he really was—away from me.
  7. He insisted it was no big deal. Seriously, he actually said those words: it’s no big deal. He said he liked having some space and privacy to himself in a relationship. Whoa, seriously? He actually was summing this up as a bit of quiet time to himself? I told him that it was insane of him to think that this behavior was OK. It was not acceptable for him to be flirting with other women on his Instagram account, and it wasn’t OK for him to have an account that I didn’t know about. Period.
  8. He said he’d delete it. He apologized profusely and said that he would get rid of that account ASAP. He even said he’d delete it in front of me so I could be sure that his flirting behavior was over. Unfortunately, that was too little, too late.
  9. I told him it was over. I wasn’t in the business of giving people second chances. I could never trust this guy again after what he’d done. I deserved someone who would be open about himself to me and not just when it came to his offline life. I wanted his virtual life to be an open book too. Most importantly, I wanted to be with someone who would be genuine so I could leave if I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t want to be with someone who hid things so that he could keep me around.
  10. I don’t care about following each other on social media. Just because I want to know what my boyfriend is doing online, that doesn’t mean I need to be in his virtual pocket. I’m totally cool with not being Facebook buddies and Instagram followers with my boyfriend. However, I’m not OK with someone I’m dating having a completely different life online that I know nothing about.
  11. It wasn’t just the flirting that got to me. Although that guy thought I was breaking up with him because he was a flirt, it was more than that. I hated that he was totally different on his private Instagram account. I hated that when I wasn’t in the room or on his followers list, he was someone else. I have no idea who the real him even was, but I’m glad I didn’t stick around to find out. I know he’s a liar and that’s enough for me.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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