About a year ago, I got a weird text from this guy that I sort of dated/didn’t date/hung out with twice/ruined his life/whatever, it was stupid, and it kind of freaked me out. First of all, I was beyond annoyed that he still had my number, because honestly, why would you save the number of someone whom you hung out with like, twice, and took to one holiday at your family’s house and bought one Tiffany bracelet for? Amateur. Second of all, it had been well over a year since I’d last seen him at all at the time of the suspect text. Third of all, the text said the following: “Hey…I just wanted you to be the first to know…I just got engaged.”
Okay, what? Not only did I no longer run in the same social circles as this boy, but I ultimately no longer cared about anything in his life, including his relationship status. I was a little impressed with my staying power to merit a personal text on the engagement, but a little confused. This kid de-friended me on Facebook, and yet he felt the need to let me know of his engagement? Bizarre.
From that moment on, I became a woman possessed. I had a stalking subject for the next year: his engagement/marriage scenario. The situation was a little complicated by the fact that I did not have access to either member of the party’s Facebooks. But, crazy stalker that I am, I figured it out, fret not. Essentially, stalking someone’s life is time consuming, but worth the effort. It’s also tres simple.
1. Mutual friends are key. I had several mutual Facebook friends with both the weird ex-not-boyfriend and his fugly fiancé, but there was no way I would be able to just ask them to periodically creep his/her Facebook and fill me in with info, because I wasn’t very close to any of the aforementioned mutual acquaintances. Plus, it’s such an amateur move to just take the easy route. What I did instead was secure the place of employment of both the bride and the groom. Then, I utilized Linked In (love that site) to decide whether I had any third parties who worked in the same building/for the same company. From there, I was able to narrow it down to a list of people that one of my close friends actually knew. It was so easy after that; my friend simply friended the bride, because there was a good chance the two had met at some point. From then on, I had constant access to any annoying Facebook updates about the progress of the wedding.
2. Google is your friend. Not only was I able to access the bride’s abysmal life accomplishments (mediocre high school sports results, not Greek, etc), but I was able to find their Wedding Website (vomit). The wedding website is quite possibly a stalker’s dream come true: I was provided with all the gross details, such as the names of the entire wedding party, the location of the wedding, where they planned on honeymooning, and links to their registry. Jackpot.
3. Knowing the wedding location, I made a few calls to figure out who was catering their big day. It’s so weird how willing people are to offer information to you when you pose as an ecstatic bride-to-be inquiring about a wedding venue. Once I hammered out the details of the catering, I contacted one of my gays who has hooked up with every bartender/cater waiter in the state. From there, he was able to promise sexual favors to any of his FWBs that worked the event. I literally secured three people on the premises of the wedding to afford me an inside view, and I also gave three gays a waiting gig for a night in the process. I’m so charitable.
4. I obviously found the photographer’s website, and was able to creep their entire engagement shoot. It’s bookmarked for when the actual wedding pictures surface. But, until then, I searched the Facebook pages of EVERY member of the wedding party until I finally found the ones whose pages weren’t completely private. From there, an entire world of possibilities was opened for me. I was able to look at about 20 albums from the wedding, created by both the bridal party and wedding guests.
What were my findings? The wedding was beyond tacky, the ring was beyond small, and the bride…woof. And you know what? It made me feel pretty damn good. My entire newsfeed is becoming flooded with engagement announcements and my phone is blowing up with calls to be a bridesmaid in someone’s wedding like, every week. I had a fleeting thought that maybe I missed the marriage train, and was able to live vicariously through the psycho I went out with twice. I came to the conclusion that 1) duh, I’m obviously way better off without someone who has no idea how to pick out an engagement ring, but more importantly, 2) I’m in no way, shape or form ready to get married. I’m just so good at playing the role of drunk bridesmaid right now there’s no point in trying to be a bride. Oh, and I’m single, so that also complicates any visions I had of getting married anytime soon.
Either way, I’m an accomplished stalker, and I hope all of you are able to utilize these skills somehow to ease whatever self esteem issues you may be having. After all, the only way to make yourself feel better on a day when your hair isn’t as shiny as you need it to be is googling some idiot and finding out he’s working an entry level job and living with his parents.
I win!
Nice Move250
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