Last week, I found out the guy I had been talking to for over a year is seeing someone else.

I found out, because I saw him in a very coupley-esque scenario on a mutual friend’s Instagram story. I messaged my guy and asked if he was involved with said person, hoping of course, that it wasn’t what it seemed. But, he replied plain as day: “Yeah we’ve been going on dates and hanging out."

I. Was. SHOOK.

I was really hurt and embarrassed, but mostly, I was just blindsided. I currently live in Tokyo, so the big time difference and distance leaves me in the dark about a lot of things that happen at home. When you live abroad, social media becomes the primary method of staying connected to family and friends. It’s often the only way to learn important information. Knowing this, why couldn’t homeboy just tell me that he wanted to end things between us if he was going to start being so public with someone else? A straightforward and personal conversation would’ve been 1000 times better than seeing it on Instagram.

Look, infidelity and secrecy are no new thing. I know this. Hell, my parents’ divorce is the result of an affair. Many scientists even argue that human beings aren’t monogamous creatures by nature. However, the issue today is the fact that so much of our lives are public. One might think it would force people to be more honest in dating, but it seems like the opposite is happening.

Though it may seem like my situation is unique, I’ve learned from other 20/30-something aged folks that a digital discovery of deception is a common phenomenon today. Nearly everyone I talk with about dating has had at least one similar experience where they found out hidden/shiesty information on social media about someone they just met, someone they’ve been dating, or someone they were in a committed relationship with.

A few examples besides my own:

My sister met a guy, was texting with him for a few weeks and planning to get together for the first time, when she scrolled through his tagged photos on Facebook and found out he was married.
One of my guy friends kept seeing his boyfriend “hanging out” with a “friend” on Snapchat, only to find out from the friend’s partner that the two were sleeping together.
A girlfriend of mine stopped dating a guy because despite their numerous deep and vulnerable conversations, because he failed to mention he had a child. The child’s mother posted a picture of the child on Twitter and @‘d the guy because he was neglecting his duties as a father.

There’s also a number of celebrities who have been exposed due to social media. Chris Brown, Rita Ora, Nick Young, Tristan Thompson and Ben Simmons are just a few recent examples. Just Google, “[name of celeb] cheating scandal” and you’ll get dozens of receipts in photos, videos and tweets. It’s understood that famous people have barely any privacy, so they’ve always been recognized and captured more easily. But now, even homegirl/guy from around the block is getting caught up through Insta, Snap and Twitter.

So, why aren’t people forthcoming about their relationship (or parent) statuses, or why don’t people behave with more discretion, even though the information is out there for the world to see?

Whether it’s an old Facebook page that’s rarely checked, a LinkedIn profile used solely for networking or a poppin' travel Instagram account that’s updated daily, you’d be hard-pressed to find a millennial who doesn’t have some social media presence. Even if you miraculously don’t have any social media accounts (I have so much admiration for you people), you still end up talked about/tagged/photographed by others. Our lives are on full display now. We can easily see what others are eating, where they’re traveling, what music they’re listening to, their allegiance to the Cavs or to Golden State and, more importantly, if they are dating someone and/or have any kids. Although you may not put the information out there yourself, it will be out there eventually thanks to family, friends or even strangers. I’m guilty of taking vids of the crowd when I’m at parties. Who knows how many relationships were ruined because “so-and-so was with so-and-so” in the back corner of my Snap of the function?

I think back on the early days of social media where folks had more autonomy in their profiles and the information about them that was public. Your online presence matched your real-life presence. However, once likes, followers and retweets became the goal of social media, a shift happened. Now, people only showcase the most appealing things about them and their lives. I myself only post media on my Insta that makes it look like I’m “living my best life.” I’m smiling, traveling the world, being social and seemingly single. In fact, I rarely even post pictures with other people, and I censor photos that others post of me. If I was dating someone, you could never tell.

Many of my friends’ and other millennial profiles are the same. But if you were to explore the photos or statuses that some of those people are tagged in, you might learn that they’re in full-fledged relationships or got a whole ass family. Sometimes, people don’t even try to hide it. A few years ago, I was approached by a cutie at a restaurant and exchanged contact information with him. By simply searching his name on Instagram, I found his public profile. On the same day that we had met, he’d posted a picture of a sonogram and tagged the baby’s mother. Along the same lines, a friend told me a story of meeting a guy and texting for awhile before a look at his (again, public) Facebook profile, which revealed that not only was he married, but he had written an article for Essence about faith and fidelity in marriage (!!!).

It has become so effortless for people to be dishonest, despite the truth being easily accessible.

Today, our truths are only a click or two away. Did my guy that I’d been talking to think about that I might see him on that video? Probably not. But were the chances high that I was going to see the video? Yes. The mutual friend’s Insta story was the first circle to pop up when I opened the app. It literally happened by chance. What if I hadn’t logged into IG that day?

When you allow yourself to be filmed/photographed/tagged in compromising or suggestive situations, you lose control over who might see it, and how the situation could be understood.

Dating today requires taking this added level of publicness into account. However, there are some people who intentionally keep their dating lives separate from their social media presences. Some of our faves have thriving relationships probably due to the fact that they don’t overtly showcase them on social media. For example, Lakeith Stanfield and Xosha Roquemore, Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet, Kerry Washington and Nnamdi Asomugha, and though Beyoncé and Jay-Z let us in a little more with every tour, the public is still kept largely out of their lives. Rumors are that Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes have been dating for five years, but paparazzi have only gotten a handful of photos of them together. Keeping your relationships private helps with relationship health, longevity, and success. Further, I really respect parents like Halle Berry who don’t share media of their children, for privacy and safety.

But the issue in all of this is not about privacy or safety. It’s about honesty and respect. If someone doesn’t have any mention of their partner or children on their platforms, but they’re loyal to the soil outside of social media, cool. But if someone is intentionally hiding their partner or family from social media, or if someone publicly acts like they’re single, but their own social media says otherwise, or if someone tries to be low key, but gets exposed through social media, it’s a problem. There is nothing more humiliating than thinking you’re dating someone while social media — and thus the world — sees otherwise.

I also think about another side of this issue: those seemingly perfect couples/relationships who are overtly public on social media. I follow pages on Instagram like @BlackLovePage and @Black.Couples, which boast thousands of photos of beautiful, young, worldly, successful and melanated people in love. The purpose of these pages are probably to showcase black love for inspiration and motivation, but, are we to believe these couples are perfectly happy? Are they to be our metric for what successful relationships look like? How are we supposed to find a “true love” like theirs? Research has shown that Instagram causes users to feel high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying and FOMO, or the “fear of missing out." At any given point in time, I can hear from friends that “I’m doing a social media cleanse” or “I deleted the IG app from my phone” or I’ll try to tag them in a funny post and learn that they’ve deactivated their account. It's pretty sad (and telling) that one of the options you can select as the reason for temporarily disabling your Instagram account is, "I just need a break." Personally speaking, seeing those love/relationship pages makes me feel the opposite of motivated and inspired. The dishonesty attached to and perpetuated by social media has made me start to view partnership as an unreachable fantasy. Love is a mirage which only exists in those perfectly curated and captured photos of strangers.

So, what does honesty look like in the age of oversharing? I think the first thing we millennials need to figure out is what monogamy and exclusivity (for those who are seeking it), and privacy and PDA look like in our public world. Even in this article, I use “talking to, seeing, dating and relationship” interchangeably because I’m unsure of the big differences between each. Obviously it should be really clear when you’re in a relationship with someone. But I think everything in between “talking to” and “relationship” has become messy and unclear because of social media.

When should you share your social media profiles with someone you start talking to? How soon do we go “public?” If you mention someone by name or are captured with them on social media, does that mean you are seriously involved with that person? Why do we post pictures of our significant others, but not tag them? Is it rude to ask your partner to post you as their #MCM? Are you insecure if you get mad at your significant other for liking a bunch of someone else’s pictures? When do you delete photos of an ex?

These may seem like silly questions, but social media has a very real influence on whether relationships build or break today. My own year-long situationship completely dissolved after I watched a 15-second video.

Maybe I’m giving social media too much power. And the irony of my article is that I’m putting my own business out there for the world to read. But we have to acknowledge that we live in a society where pictures and posts are viewed, interpreted and shared thousands of times over, regardless of who posts them. We have less and less control over if and when we’re seen online. People can get set for life, or conversely, have their lives ruined from one post that they are featured in or create (BLOOP @ Roseanne). It’s the reason why countries like my current home, Japan, are enacting strict laws which criminalize taking/posting pictures and videos of people without their consent.

Social media is both a blessing and curse: we’re more connected than we’ve ever been, but maybe we’re also less honest than we’ve ever been. Not only do you have to learn to trust someone based on what they say and show you in person, you now also have to learn to trust who they are online. Millennials love to share their lavish trips, delicious meals and fresh fits, but are too scared to showcase their partners or families. We’ll gladly “do it for the ‘gram,” but will duck and dodge the camera if it’ll reveal something we don’t want potential partners to know. We have to stop this. We can’t forget about the behaviors that lead to true human connection: communication, transparency, respect and honesty.

I’m a hopeless romantic, so I’m not giving up on dating yet, but I’m thinking more and more about giving up social media. Maybe if I share less, I will start living my day-to-day life more authentically. And we attract what we put out into the universe, right?

Gabrielle Parsons

Writing since May 2018 · 2 stories contributed