Relationships Talk

We’ve all done it.

You know what I’m talking about: Spent whole hours sprawled across your couch as you make your way back through someone’s tagged posts on Instagram or Facebook uploads. You scroll and you scroll, the moon waxing and waning through your window until you reach the last image, an over-saturated digital camera snap from an underage disco to which they have definitely smuggled alcohol in a water bottle.

As you pick your way through the detritus of their life – check-ins at nightclubs, all the exhausting holiday uploads, sweet birthday messages from grandparents all in capital letters – you feel like you know this person. You feel like you understand them. You feel like you have a true sense of the fabric of their life.

Which all means that when you finally end up on a date with them (this online stalking invariably comes before a date), you are measuring the real-life grit of this person with the online persona you have come to know so well. You already know about that time they ran the Gold Coast marathon in 2014. You know about the skiing trip to New Zealand in 2011. You know about all their exes. You’ve seen the pictures of every regrettable haircut.

“I insta-stalk a potential date literally every single time,” Rochelle, 28, says. “Honestly I cannot help it. I do financial diligence for a living and this is not dissimilar, whether investing your money or your precious time you want as much information available to you as possible to help you make an informed decision… Straight to the tagged photos, am I right?”

Okay, so maybe your version of raking through your Bumble matches’ social media footprint isn’t as thorough as Rochelle’s or mine, but it’s safe to say that you’ve probably googled and Facebook or Instagram-stalked someone before.

There’s a point to all this scrolling, of course. Looking at someone’s backstory gives us a sense of security about the person we are meeting. It gives us context, but it also makes us feel safe. But there’s a downside, too. How can anyone possibly live up to the picture you craft in your head after poring over their online presence? Once you’ve Insta-stalked someone, you arrive at the date with a preconceived notion of who they are based on their social media presence, which can nip a potential romance right in the bud.

“It’s important to at least have a chance to get to know a potential partner rather than making assumptions about them based on what you can see online,” relationship psychotherapist Kate Moyle explains.

“There is often a gap between the selfs we show of ourselves online and the realistic versions, and not only does it potentially create false expectations about a person, which can give us feelings of disappointment without even offering a partner a chance, there is [also] so much more to a person than their appearance or front. By viewing them on a screen we see them in 2D, and both people and attraction come in 3D, and attraction is something that happens between people.” Not between Instagram accounts, Moyle is saying.

I experienced this firsthand recently when I went on a date with someone whom I met – shockingly – in real life. We met through mutual friends at a dinner party, which makes us sound like a couple of grownups, and made plans to reconnect a few weeks later. In the intervening weeks I managed to steer clear of social media, but as the plans for our date began to take shape I couldn’t help myself. I plugged his name into Facebook, and then Instagram, and then, finally, out of sheer desperation, Twitter.

Nothing. Nada. I could find hardly anything about him online, no prime, juicy bit of information pertaining to Facebook groups he has joined, events he checked into or pictures taken at charity football games. Nothing.

It was strange. I had never been out with someone whose life was a completely mystery, at least online, anyway. I came of age in the era of Myspace and LiveJournals: I’ve lived my adolescence and then my 20s out in glorious technicolour online and everyone I’ve ever dated has been the same.

This is going to sound ridiculous to anyone who dated before the onset of the internet, but all this not-knowing was exciting. Yes, I was a little nervous before the date, but when we finally started talking and telling the much-told story of ourselves it felt like unearthing buried treasure. I forgot how much fun it could be to hear someone tell the story of the time they muddled their way through a marathon, or when they face-planted while skiing in New Zealand, or the terrible haircut they had when they were backpacking through South America. I forgot how much fun it could be to learn about someone from them, and not through all the half-truths we tell about ourselves on social media.

“I’ve been on two unstalkable dates,” Rochelle agrees, “and it really was fun finding out about someone when you know nothing about them. In one instance, it was way more impressive than I could ever have imagined. A good surprise! The other turned out to be deeply into hiking, self-improvement and life-coaching which would have gotten him dinged immediately. I like sleep and Netflix too much to date this guy.”

Yes, there were things I learned on my date that, had I known about them from social media beforehand I might not have wanted to see this guy again. Like his taste in music, for example, which is, in one word, regrettable.

But this is such small fry in the grand scheme of things, just one bit of information that, when stitched together with all the other little bits of information, make up this man. I’m still learning about him and about his life. There are good things and bad things, terrible jokes and great dinners. The point is that without social media to colour the picture, we’re taking our time and we’re doing it on our own. And we’re having such fun doing it, too.

Read more stories like this: The one piece of advice all single women need to hear and Signs you might be dating a narcissist .