I have a friend that checks her ex-boyfriend’s social media feeds semi-regularly. I check an ex-friend’s feed even more often.

We’re in a digital world, most of our generation shares their lives on social media, it’s easy to cyber stalk. It’s easy to learn details that you wouldn’t ever learn in person. It’s easy to dismiss your need to hash up the past on ‘oh I just thought about them and I was curious.’ But did you check their feed because you were curious or were you curious because you check their feed so often?

The longer you linger on a topic the more likely it is to circle back around later. The more frequently you indulge in a curiosity, the more likely you are to do it again. Somebody doesn’t have to be standing on the other side of the door to make their way in when you open it. Whether you are talking to these people or not, whether they are thinking of you or not, you’re asking them to come live in your head rent free.

It’s not good for you, not only because it makes you linger in the past, or in your anger, or in your broken heart, but also because you’re now in a relationship for one. No one-sided relationship is healthy simply because relationships are never meant to be one sided. It’s not a new phenomenon, people have lingered on those they shouldn’t for years, but social media is making it easier, and it’s giving us a front row seat to someones life we aren’t supposed to be a part of any longer.

We aren’t supposed to follow people like a soap opera. We aren’t supposed to become addicted to checking up on them. We’re becoming obsessed with checking up on people. I know addicted and obsessed are big words, but if you check in on a person often enough that it’s become a routine, I’m sorry to say it, but those words are probably accurate. It shouldn’t be hard not to check in on a person that no longer wants us to be part of their life. It shouldn’t be hard for us not to check in on a person that we say we no longer want to be part of our lives. But are we being honest with ourselves when we say that? Clearly you do want them to be part of your life if you’re making them part of it.

Living in the past is an easy way out. It lets you keep yourself from dealing with the struggles of moving on or it lets you bathe in hatred enough that you’re not upset about the fact that they’re gone.

It’s time to address this topic head on. It’s time to take a good look at what we’re doing instead of dismissing it. This is a problem, and it’s one we shouldn’t continue.