Thanks to MN I stalked my ex and this is what happened....

[chatenoire]

There's this thread going on about "where would you be if you had stayed with your first love"... So I found him on LinkedIn and clicked on his profile. TBH I thought he'd ignore me .. but instead he messaged me back and said he didn't really understand why I looked him up. I just said I was approaching 40. We exchanged a few messages about our careers but he kept going back that he hoped I found what I wanted to find. He definitely took it too deeply. He even remembered the number of years we haven't been in touch (I definitely had lost count!)

Every five years or so I look up exes. Why not? I'm interested. Not interested enough that I'd bother if it were any effort, but interested enough to take five seconds to type their names into Google. There was a time when every single thought that went through these men's heads was the most interesting thing in the world to me. I cared about all their plans, hopes, strengths, ambitions, interests, etc. seems normal to be mildly curious about how their lives turned out. If I saw one of them in the street I'd stop and chat. It's no different.

It's also no different from idly googling famous actors' parents or spouses or whatever. Old professors, old roommates, mums from bygone playgroups. Sometimes you just think to yourself, ah, I wonder....

It is funny, I have had a few 'blast from the past' contacts and love to find out how people are. But I am not a man with a male ego that would then be convinced you had been secretly in love with me for all that time!

Your parents ended your relationship? WTF?!

It's a long story but yes (in a way). They didn't like him so basically gave me an ultimatum of moving in with him (or out) or breaking up with him.

Wow, that's intense and controlling.

Moved on, yet not only do you blame MN for stalking him, you even start a thread on it and suggest that it's your ex who has been thinking about this deeply.

Anyway, your curiosity has been satisfied at least.

Everybody does it.

You can’t on LinkedIn! You have to be logged in to see people’s pages

Now he's found me on IG and messaged me... As much as it was me who looked him up, I think I'll just ignore

They only know if you're logged into your account. If you don't have an account no one will know you've looked at them on LinkedIn

You just change your privacy settings so your visibility is ‘anonymous’ / ‘private viewer’

all very Romeo and Juliet 🤭

goodness you weee checking your IG at 3.30am!

My ex of around 20 years checked out my LinkedIn profile a couple of years ago. And it did really freak me out.

Like, why did he feel the need? What was he hoping to find? Would he find me at mr work?

It's just a very odd thing to do. I understand his point of view.

Thank you! I think that must have been what went through his head. He used very much your same words.

someone imply i’m weird for contacting them after decades of no contact….

I wouldn’t bother responding let alone go back and forth on why i did

I KNEW IT! Didn't I say? This is how affairs start.

I think it’s really weird that you looked him up.

If you wanted to speak to him then you could have sent him a message.

It sounds like you’ve got too much time on your hands and that you wanted him to message you and potentially start something up.

You will never know what your life would have been like if you’d stayed with him because both of your lives would have been completely different, so I call BS on that.

Be careful with that corporate ladder. I climbed it, but when I got to the top, I found that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

op i was on your other thread . You are not in a good place atm, so messaging exs, i matter how innocently, is, probably not the best idea

Looking someone up on LinkedIn is a thing anyone might do out of idle curiosity. He may well have viewed that as odd.

But communicating with you to say so is odder still, and the persistence of his repeated follow-up messages waaaaaaaay odder even than that.

When all's said and done you merely looked at his profile: you didn't contact him. As of now, stepping back from this line of communication is probably a good idea.

Exactly!!