Stalking Instagram Stories

[WinterNightsByCandleLight]

Right, ladies, is this weird?

One of my OH's work colleagues doesn't follow me on Instagram (and doesn't have me on Facebook either) - the two other women who work in his department that OH is close with, do follow me, and I follow them also! We all get along well and regularly chat/have banter etc - not sure that's relevant but thought I'd add it in anyway!

So, the one that doesn't follow me (who I also don't follow)..
I noticed this evening that she'd watched my Instagram story that I posted this afternoon. Upon spotting this, I went back through my Archive of Instagram stories and have seen that she's been watching my daily stories almost religiously for nearly three months now?! 🤔 To watch someone's story that you dont follow, you need to search for them to get to their profile and then watch it that way - as opposed to when you do follow someone, their story will appear at the top of your feed making it nice and easy to quickly tap and see what people are posting.

Is it weird that she's quite blatantly searching for my profile on an almost daily basis to watch my stories!? I think it is.. I told OH about it but he can't see why it bothers me. For the record, it's not that it 'bothers' me as such, I just find it quite creepy and strange!

Oh and before people jump to it, I can categorically rule out anything going on between weird stalker colleague and my OH!

These replies are so strange! Of course her searching you out every day to view your stories is weird if she's following you it'd be fine, but my guess is she thinks it's inappropriate to follow and doesn't realise you know she's watching! I expect it's harmless and she'll be mortified

Out of interest, how many followers do you have?

I grew up in a small place and I sometimes watch the stories of someone I know from the area. I don't send a follow request because I do not want to interact with them but I am nosey and the person travels a lot and I find the stories interesting. It is also a public page and I think that anybody who puts their settings at public actively wants people to look at them so I oblige :). My own page is private and I rarely accept follow requests from anyone.

It's certainly strange and clearly she doesn't realise you can see she's watching or I think she'd be really embarrassed. Maybe she finds your stories entertaining? Maybe she's jealous of your life or wants your husband? You'll never know the answer.
I think if it creeps you out that much make your profile private for a few weeks. That way she'll maybe finally realise she can't stalk you any more.
Mine is currently open and I get a lot of random people (mainly men) watching mine. Does your husband post on Instagram much? I reckon if his is public she is stalking his too.

On Instagram you can watch recommended stories, they keep rolling through until you stop watching. If you and people she is already connected to interact then the algorithms will put your stories at the top of her list or recommended viewings, especially if you upload stories frequently.

I would also presume from what you've been saying you often look at her profile as it's not private (but not her stories) this will put you higher up in her recommended people to follow/stories to view.

I’ve been thinking about this again. If a page is public, then the owner wants people to watch it. If the owner constantly looks at her viewers to check who has been watching her stories, is this not further evidence she wants attention?

I don't always go on her profile, I went on it for the first time last night in about four years after seeing she'd obviously been on mine recently.

And I don't 'constantly' check who's watched my stories. Once in a blue moon I'll have a little nose to see who I'm engaging with, but that's literally it. It's not an on going thing that I spend all my time doing 😐

I have no qualms with anyone being on my profile, hence why it isn't private. My issue here is that she's checking up on me daily and I cannot see why she'd feel the need to do that. If my stories or posts are entertaining to her, that's great! But surely it'd make her life easier to just follow instead of having to search each time. I dunno!

OH's profile is private. She follows him but he doesn't follow her. Maybe she's interested in our family life, I really don't know. It still feels a bit bizarre to me though.

I wouldnt dismiss thecrush on your OH either, it’s the kind of weird shit somepeopje do when they get obsessed about someone,

Just set it to private or block her. If you have a public profile people you don’t know will just watch it. It’s a bit odd I agree, I would just set it to private myself.

I’m with you. It’s odd. Like someone else said she may be interested in you for a number of reasons - could be she likes your style, finds you funny, you wind her up and she wants to see more stuff that she can seethe inwardly about, she might like how you present yourself or be getting ideas for her own insta. She can’t know that insta shows you who has viewed or she would openly follow you. Perhaps she feels weird that her other two colleagues follow you and she doesn’t want to be the first to follow iyswim.

But yeah, searching for you everyday is strange. It’s more than a passing interest.

If she was watching because she was weird she would set up a profile using a different name and/or photo. She obviously isn’t the slightest bit embarrassed but why would she (or anyone) be) embarrassed by looking at a public profile? I look at someone and could t give two hoots and assume if they were bothered they would make theirs private.

She may not be searching for you at all, people's stories come up on my explore page. Especially if we've got muteral followers or are following muteral people.

So i dont follow either of the people on this photo but i understand why they come up because i have a lot of followers that will follow them and to behonest when i do see their stories on the explore page i will look at their stories.

Add her or don't add her its up to you. But she may not be stalkijg you at all

Well you wouldn’t be embarrassed by watching stories of someone you openly follow. Watching stories of someone you don’t follow shows that you’ve searched for them daily which is a different thing. Plus there’s the element of whether she doesn’t know that insta shows who has viewed. She might think she’s being stealthy!

Does she post her own stories OP? I’d follow her 😂

Ooh, I don’t have stories on my explore page... is that a recent update?

picklerick no its on my ipad that i dont update. However, it might be different now, or depend on the os because when i went to get this screen shot it didnt come up on my updated android phone.
So it might be an old ios thing.

OP, I think several people are either not getting the fact that someone is repeating the same activity daily, whereas you only once noticed that she's done it and looked back to see a pattern.

I agree it is totally weird. Either she has a crush on your OH, or she's possibly paranoid that your mutual friends are gossiping about her to you ir something.

I think honestly though, unless you ask her straight out, and she actually answers truthfully, there's little way to know why.

You'll either have to trust everyone involved or maybe go private.

If you post two in one day, has she watched them both...

Either she has a crush on your OH

Or she may have a crush on OP?

If you post two in one day, they link and sort of run into each other.

Everyone knows you can see who looks at Ista stories. Istagram makes it very transparent.

Make your profile private. I don't have my Instagram public at all otherwise everyone can see it. Problem solved

From what I can gather, basing it on when she started religiously watching them, it all started in August around the time that OH, myself and the two other work colleagues went to one of their work mates weddings. That's more or less when she started creeping on me 🤷🏻‍♀️

Like I've said, I don't have a problem with people being on my profile, if I did, I'd make it private. It's just what appears to be the constant checking of my profile that's throwing me off. I'm honestly not an interesting person with a fascinating life. I'm an average joe doing average joe things.

Just block her 🤷🏻‍♀️

They run together but it still gives individual viewing stats so one in the morning and one in the evening would let op know if she’d looked twice. If you posted at 9.00 and 9.01 and she looked at anytime that day it’d show she’d seen both. If you posted one at 9am and one at 11pm it’d only show she saw the 9am one.

I don’t think it’s that transparent, does it say before you view? Or accidentally click? No...

do an update saying hello to her and to feel free to follow you if she wishes!