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thegirls girls
F
or about the last six
months, my ex’s new
girlfriend’s blog has
occupied the toxic
waste corner of my
brain – a place that
was previously reserved for
YouTube videos of people
falling over in public. When
I’m having an especially bad
day, I send her posts to my
best friend Julie so she can
confirm for me exactly how
pretentious and mediocre the
new girl in my ex’s life – let’s
just call her Pretentia – is.
Julie is game for this because,
just yesterday, I reassured
her that based on extensive
Facebook stalking, she’s so
much hotter than her current
boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.
Thanks to the rise of
social media, it has become
a popular indoor sport to
gather around a screen with
your friends for a thorough
dissection of the woman in
your ex-boyfriend’s present
(or boyfriend’s past). Find
her most unflattering angles
in Facebook photos, smirk
at the misspelled hashtags
on her Instagram, and the
person who comes up with
the funniest burn wins. Yet
after this cathartic cattiness
you don’t feel better... you
just feel empty. Yay?OF PEOPLE AGED 18 TO 35
FACEBOOK-STALK EXES88
The first time I ever
stalked her Insta was shortly
after my ex-boyfriend and I
hooked up for the last time,
when I’d heard he was dating
someone new. The very first
photo on her feed was of him
posing with a babe – I mean,
a goddamn baby! From the
caption, it was clear that they
were dating. It wasn’t their
baby, obviously, but that’s
not the point. Once I was
finished crying in the work
toilets, I went into search-
and-attack mode. If Pretentia
had a deleted LiveJournal
post from 1999, I would’ve
found it, read it and sent it
to everyone I know along
with a cruel subject line.
It’s a paradox. You see,
most of the time I’m a card-
carrying feminist, but this
girl’s social media footprint
turns me into Evil Cady
from Mean Girls, sniping to
all my friends: “I have this
theory that if you cut off all
her hair, she would look like
a British man.”Most of the women
I know are the same way.
They have tons of female
friends, make donations to
the McGrath Foundation
and are outspoken about
women’s issues – but pull
up a photo of their ex’s new
girlfriend and they morph
into a hateful Greek chorus
of girl-on-girl bitchiness. It
turns out giving to charity
is the easy part of supporting
the sisterhood. This stuff?
This is way trickier.
And it’s not just my
friends, either. According
to a study from Western
University in Canada, 88 per
cent of 18- to 35-year-olds
Facebook-stalk their exes,
and 74 per cent have sniffed
around the Facebook page
of their ex-flame’s newest
partner. It’s impossible to
know how many of those
people are women gleefully
pointing out the brand-new
girlfriend’s acne over wine
and pizza with their friends,
but I’d wager it’s a lot.
Psychotherapist Leslie
Bell, author of Hard to Get:
20-Something Women and the
Paradox of Sexual Freedom,
told me that there are many
reasons why we morph into
dickheads in this scenario.
Firstly, your girl-hate maybe triggered by lingering
feelings of your romantic
investment in the guy. “You
are still preserving him as
good in your mind in a way,”
she says. “On the other hand,
you have no attachment to
[the girlfriend], so there’s
nothing lost in critiquing
her and taking her down.”
If your break-up was
a shit-show where you were
brutally dumped and yet he
still comes up in conversation
when you’ve had a few vinos,
let’s just say that I hope her
Instagram feed is private.
You may not even be
safe in the sanctuary of your
wine-and-pizza party, says
Bell: “You’re [doing this]
with your friends, but there’s
a sense of vulnerability. The
tables could turn and you
could be the next victim.”
I disagree to an extent- it’s actually a shameful but
powerful bonding exercise - but at the same time the
prevalence of the nasty habit
certainly does make me more
wary of befriending new
Why her ex’s new girlfriend turns Anna Breslaw into a mean girl