Lurking For Love

In a world where you hardly have to know someone to learn about them, WH explores just how far is too far when it comes to “following” a potential partner. Here, the latest in social media-meets-relationships

- Marissa Gainsburg

We’d met only once, but within a week, I’d found a news article applauding his work, the value of his parents’ holiday house and his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook. And not because he told me details on any of these facts, but because I was on a mission to find out everything – mind you, anything – I could about my new crush. If you think I’m creepy AF, I’m not surprised. But if you can also relate, I’m not surprised, either.

It’s Human Instinct

The desire to seek out information about a person of interest is about as natural as breathing. “The more we know about someone, the more we can connect with them, which helps fill our need for love and belonging,” says psychologist Dr Michelle Drouin, who studies technology’s role in relationships. In the past, that would happen organically – we’d learn about somebody solely through our real-life experiences with them (aka dating). But in 2019, when info is literally at our fingertips (clicking around Google, scrolling on Instagram), women are filling in the gaps through their own digital detective work.

A quick “is this person who they say they are?” search is the responsible thing to do. But, knowing that nuggets of truth float around us like dust particles in the air, most of us don’t stop there. Once we’ve deemed someone a worthy match, we’ll keep searching for evidence to confirm that, piecing the particles together as we fall deeper and deeper into a fact-gathering rabbit hole. While there’s no clinical term for the social media-fuelled habit in any psych textbook, experts have given it a compelling name: soft stalking.

The Hard Truth