Confessions of a Creeper and Other Reasons I’m Single
My name is Lindsay and I’m a creeper. Specifically, a social media creeper.
In this day and age, I view social media creepiness as more than a weird compulsion- it’s a survival tactic. I can very efficiently discover if ‘what’s his name’ from the bar has a girlfriend, or if ‘so and so’ actually graduated from college. And let’s not even talk about the seemingly commonplace act of catfishing.
This compulsion has been fairly longstanding, but it really came to a head last month. I’d met a very cute guy at a concert and everything was rosy until I lost him in the crowd. Armed with just his first name and college alma mater I used the mighty powers of Facebook Graph Search and found him in a matter of seconds.
Did I feel like a terrifying person? Yes. Did I stop there? No.
Due largely to peer pressure and my inability to forget this boy, I friend requested him. It was in this moment that I realized I had a problem.
Our ability to have someone’s entire internet personality at our fingertips has broken down a very important reality: We don’t actually know these people. I can look at your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all day long and, yet, I’m no closer to knowing who you actually are.
This infinite information presents a real problem in relationships. We feel as if we know all of these little facts about people without even having a conversation with them. “Oh, I don’t need to ask you about your siblings on this date, I looked at their Facebooks yesterday.” We’re forging opinions about people and stunting the longevity of potential relationships. Instead of finding out about past relationships on date 3, we’re creeping on their exes after date 1 and canceling date 2 based on our findings.
Very recently, a Tinder chat (a story in itself) grew into an actual chance to grab drinks. I fought every impulse to creep on this guy.* I wanted for once to go on a date without any extra information. And believe it or not, it went well. I didn’t prompt him with questions based on his Facebook interests and yet we still had plenty to talk about. The freedom of a clean slate helped me gain actual interest in this person and who knows, maybe there will be a second and third date.
I’m Lindsay. And I’m trying to get better.
*Okay. I admit it. I looked at his Facebook. I don’t need some catfish swimming into my life.
