So, I don’t stalk people I’m interested in romantically on social media. Anymore. Or not more than once or twice right at the start of things. I know this goes against every stereotype of our ever-online age, is a waste of sixth sense superpowers (sometimes known as “female intuition”), and deprives me of details I may find useful, but here’s why.

            Nobody is who they seem to be on their social media profiles, not even me. Information that’s found on those curated-but-casual, circumstantial-but-chosen profiles falls broadly into two categories: information that a person wants others to see or doesn’t mind others seeing, and information that is gleaned through clues, which may be unknowingly dropped. These are highly selective or incomplete forms of information. Inadvertently, when we scrollstalk, we thread these scraps together and form an impression about a person and their desires, values and life trajectory. We project both what we want to see, and what we’re afraid of. We jump to conclusions. We do this for people who like, people we used to love, and people they know. Longing asks for its own soothing, has strange ways of seeping out.

            I would make a cute pun about ex-ray vision, but here’s the truth: limerent people like me have relatively few actual exes, and an utter carnage of crushes instead. I’d prefer not to count how many people I cared for whose impending marriages I learned of through social media, in my sordid supersleuth past.

            Despite the rarity of a reciprocated crush (at least, to the best of my awareness), I also know this by now: I’m a bit put off should I learn that someone has checked up on me online. My online posts are for public consumption, even when I’m messy. They are at best a smidgen of my life; and sometimes, they’re a deliberate smudge, because I value my privacy and am not beyond throwing a red herring or two into the mix. If someone in my offline orbit chooses to observe me without trying to engage with me, then that someone never will. Another part of being old enough to know that social media is an optical illusion is knowing that I want to be with someone who makes the effort to be with me, and wants to. Loose lips may sink ships, but tongue-tied baes don’t even leave the bay to begin with.

            Mostly, however, I don’t look at the social media profiles of my crushes because of this: I would like to get to know them for real. I would like for us to linger. I would like for us to talk, and to listen. I would like to ask questions without secretly knowing the answers, to more slowly but more surely learn about each other. I would like to see the true picture, in context: who can they be to me, in my life, and how equal or otherwise is our wanting? I would like to know a lot, you see. Which is why I feel good about not knowing, because when I fool myself into thinking I know, I may also fool myself into thinking they care.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.