We’re all guilty of succumbing to the temptation of stalking our exes on social media. However, if you’re doing it all the time, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself why and how you can move on.
- You broke up for a reason. Always remember that there’s a reason why you aren’t together anymore. Whether you broke up with him, he broke up with you, or you had some kind of mutual arrangement, breakups suck—I get it. But you’re doing more harm than good by checking up on him continuously.
- You’re destroying your chance at happiness. Let’s face it, it’s not nice to see your ex looking like he’s having the best time ever being single while you’re crying into a tub of ice cream every night. Perhaps he doesn’t look like he’s up to much and it makes you feel better temporarily, but you know what? If you keep up your stalking game, you’re only going to find something you don’t like eventually—and that will make your heart ache even more than it does already.
- It’s easy to misinterpret things. Social media has the habit of making life seem amazing when in reality, it’s pretty effing terrible. If you’re constantly stalking your ex, you’re more likely to see things that can easily be misconstrued. The continuous bar check-ins? That’s actually his new job. The photo of his arm around another girl? She’s his second cousin Maddie. Things are always worse than they seem on social media so you have to take everything with a pinch of salt, which is hard when you’re going through a breakup.
- When you’re upset, your mind catastrophizes. Even if you do see something that’s pretty blatant, like a video of him kissing another girl, you’re not helping yourself by watching it. When we’re emotional, we’re not always rational and we often end up jumping to conclusions and blowing things out of proportion. What you saw could actually be just a meaningless kiss to make your ex feel better because he’s devastated over losing you. The fact is that you’re not inside his mind and you don’t have the right to ask him what’s up anymore, so you have to leave him to his own business.
- You’re delaying your healing process. Think about it: one day you’re feeling strong and ready to conquer the world again; the next: you see something on his social media that makes you go back a step. It’s not healthy and it’s not fair to you. You should only be moving forwards through a breakup, not backward or sideways.
- You’re stopping yourself from moving on. The saying “out of sight, out of mind” rings true for a reason. Be kinder to yourself, cut the BS, and use the energy that you’re spending stalking him working on you and your happiness.
- It’s embarrassing. Sure, we’ve all been there, but the only reason why we stalk exes is because no one is around to catch us. I mean, think about it: if a loved one was standing behind you watching you investigate in his online activity, wouldn’t you feel kind of humiliated about it? Like you were doing something wrong? Well, that’s because you are and you need to stop.
- Cut all ties and get on with your life. Even though I know it’s difficult, you need to put measures in place that will stop you from undertaking your stalking ritual such as blocking your ex across all social media platforms. Like pulling off a band-aid, it will sting a ton at first, but it’ll be worth it in the long run to allow yourself to breathe fresher air.
- Hindsight will be a beautiful thing. Once you’re through this bad stalking spell and out the other side, you’ll wonder what on earth you were doing wasting valuable hours of the day on your ex who you now never think about. But it’s OK—you’re only human, and stalking your ex is just another stage in the process of moving onto bigger and better things.
