Signs you're going overboard with social-media stalking

Everybody stalks in social media more or less, if you're scrolling through someone's timeline or accidentally liking their Instagram post from 2012 at 2 a.m. you've relapsed beyond help. Check through these warning symptoms and help yourself revert before transforming into a complete creep behind the screen.

CODE GREEN: Educating yourself on their basics

You make weekly visits to their profile, like a garbage man, silently picking up whatever junk you get. You fawn over the new display picture, probably look at it every now and then before going to bed and grin to yourself. Their favourite Beatle song is Twist and Shout, you know that through the courtesy yesterday's post. "Happy 20th birthday", you whisper to yourself as you scroll down all the more meaningful wishes on his wall. 

You're within your limits. Stay exactly where you are. Make these visits less frequent if possible. Do not visit their account after 2 A.M. 

CODE YELLOW: Growing attachments and adopting their behaviour 

You now use their catch phrases "Ermahgerd" and "Yao" - ones they recurrently use. Their most used emoji is at the top of your emoji bar. You've liked the same pages as them. You spend minutes trying to comprehend what they found funny on the post they commented "HAHAHAHA". At the end you convince yourself its funny, because it must be since they thought so. You began liking the Beatles or at least that's what you tell yourself because you're that desperate to find compatibility, whether or not you're crushing on them. 

You can still tone down the fascination before it takes over further. Don't lose yourself becoming them. 

CODE ORANGE: Widening your horizons

You're in their cousin's brother-in-law's account now, whom you've taken upon stalking as well these days. You have most of their family tree figured out. However you're still confused whether the aged man in those pictures belongs to their paternal or maternal side. You've even seen the pictures from their vacation to Bali in 2008. The moment that sub-tweet appeared, you knew exactly which traitor friend they referred to. Now you're not so patiently waiting on their wall for the live view of the storm playing out. 

If you look away now and focus on tomorrow's chemistry test, there might be a chance the interest on them will gradually dim. 

CODE RED: Having an internet multiple personality disorder 

They've either blocked you or you need to be "friends" with them to unearth more information. You're too shy to associate with them being yourself, but can't contain your curiosity. So you make multiple fake accounts. Try knocking them from one perhaps. They mustn't recognise your true identity, they'll just see a random girl's name with a randomly Googled picture of a pretty girl. You try not to expose yourself as a creep.

But that is who you are now: a creep, a fraud. You've become an identity thief. You've gone too far. Going back now takes more strength than most can muster. The best you can do is disable your internet connection and hope for this obsession to pass.

Samin Sabah Islam is on a quest to find the perfect diet while simultaneously drooling over pizza. Throw her some tips at [email protected]