We’ve all been there. You get to know a really cute guy at a party and the first thing you do when you get home (if you’re not too drunk) is scour a mutual friend’s profile, find said hottie, examine all 68,431 of his pictures before bookmarking his profile on your computer for future updates ‒ read: every hour.
While it’s understandable to want to find out more about someone you’ve taken an interest in, some people go a little too far and end up being Facebook stalkers. Here are six signs that you might want to take your curiosity down a notch. You know, just so you don’t come across as a psychopath.
When he says, “Oh, I went to the mall yesterday”...
You say, “I know, I saw it on your check-ins!”. It’s perfectly normal to notice where someone is at if it appears on your news feed, but it might not be such a good idea to tell the person that you know ‒ and remember ‒ their whereabouts constantly. Only a true Facebook stalker would remember where all of their friends went over the weekend, and then let them know about it again when they meet in person.
You are always commenting on or “liking” his posts
Yes, even those from a year ago. If you’re going back to someone’s photo archives and posting comments on an image from when they were 16, that’s a little bit weird, and also a dead giveaway that you are spending a little too much time staring at that person’s Facebook profile.
You get angry when he has good privacy settings
The thing that frustrates most Facebook stalkers is when they aren’t able to see anything on someone’s Facebook profile because of its high privacy settings. Should you know a Facebook stalker, you will very likely hear them utter something along the lines of, “I don’t care about which school he went to or what he does for a living, I want to see his pictures of his ex-girlfriend!”
You constantly look at your profile to see what it looks like
How else will you know what he thinks of your profile? Because a Facebook stalker spends a huge portion of their time making deductions about a person’s life from their Facebook profile, chances are they want to ensure that their profile depicts them in the most interesting light possible.
If you’re thinking and re-thinking your status updates before your click “Post” ‒ Does this sound stupid? Do I sound boring? ‒ or putting in plenty of thought as to which picture you should use on your profile, my guess is that you either have severe vanity issues or are a Facebook stalker.
You know all his friends’ friends
You started out looking at that cutie’s profile, but before you knew it, you’ve clicked your way through his entire network of friends ‒ college buddies, work colleagues and even family! You’ve learnt everything about his life in just a few hours ‒ close friends, regular haunts, preferred drinks, favourite t-shirt ‒ it’s like you’ve known them forever without even having met them. Creepy.
You got blocked
Need I say more?