The only image I had of her was all of those pictures on her Instagram account of her laughing and smiling so naturally, looking so perfect and happy, laying out at the beach, drinking iced coffee’s and going to rock concerts with her endless amounts of friends. I wanted to feel like she was actually human, to see her crying or squeezing a gross pimple off of her face.

According to a study I read, Americans spend almost an hour daily on social media. But can you really blame us millennials? There is so much to see, it’s pretty much an online scrapbook to see what everyone we’ve ever come across is doing. Why wouldn’t we look, right? It usually starts out completely innocently anyway.

For me, it also started out rather innocently, I was just curious to see what she looked like, and then somehow I ended up looking up the meaning of cyberstalking on Google. I didn’t quite fit the category because I wasn’t sending her any messages, but I truly scared myself with the amount I looked into her every picture and every post. Her profile even started to show up in my frequently visited, as I would check it several times a day.

I would even find myself bringing her up in conversation. It was like I had a crush on this girl that I had never end met before. I knew of her, and my boyfriend had cheated on me with her. I hoped that she knew of me too, although we never had any actual interaction, but still, I never every detail of her life, including her dog’s name.

I wanted to hate her, yet wanted to be her at the same time. But since I couldn’t do either (she hadn’t actually known about me) I instead got myself into a self-pity stalking her on social media.

I tortured myself by looking at her pictures, even just finding out her name killed me. It felt like she was my superior. I even saw a picture of her and my (ex) boyfriend with their arms wrapped around each other, with grossly large smiles on both of their faces.

I even listed all the reasons why she’s prettier and better than me. As if being cheated on isn’t bad enough, I made everything worse by giving myself access to all her accounts.

I became disgusted with myself and couldn’t believe she was a real person. Her Instagram looked too perfect. I decided I needed to find her and she what she’s like in real life. I went down to visit my friend who attends the same university as her. I knew that I was bound to find her.

When it happened, she smiled at me from across the bar with that look as though she knew who I was. We said nothing to each other with a mutual understanding. I then saw a pimple on her forehead covered in makeup, and it changed everything for me.

I finally felt free and happy to be.