Your Likes Are Showing
There is a version of you that exists online that you think nobody is paying attention to. The accounts you follow. The photos you like at 11 pm. The shirtless gym guy with 80,000 followers whose every post gets your heart tapping within thirty seconds of it going up. The bikini model whose comments section you’ve contributed to more times than you’d admit out loud. You think that’s private. It isn’t. It’s a broadcast.
Do You Think They Know You Exist
Let’s start with the most basic reality check. That tattooed, muscle-bound guy with the six pack and the professional lighting does not know your name. He has fifty thousand followers. Your like is a number. Your comment is one of four hundred on that post. He is not thinking about you. He is not going to slide into your DMs because you double-tapped his latest photo. The parasocial fantasy that liking someone’s content creates a connection is just that. A fantasy.
The same goes for the men doing it on the other side. The bikini model with the carefully curated feed and the brand deals is not flattered that you specifically liked her photo. She has an engagement rate to maintain. You are a metric. The idea that your consistent attention means anything to someone operating at that scale is the kind of thinking that belongs in a different conversation entirely.
But Your Partner Is Watching
Here’s where it actually matters. The person who does know you exist, the person who is paying attention, the person whose feelings are genuinely affected by what you do online, is the one you’re supposedly in a relationship with. And they can see your activity. They can see whose posts you like. They can see the comments you leave. They can see the accounts you follow and how quickly you engage with certain content. None of it is invisible.
You might tell yourself it’s harmless. You might say it means nothing. But ask yourself how you’d feel watching your partner work through a feed full of thirst traps, double-tapping every oiled-up photo that came across their screen. Ask yourself whether you’d find that harmless. Most people wouldn’t. Most people would find it disrespectful. And most people would be right.
What You Engage With Says Something About You
This is the part people don’t want to hear. What you consistently like, comment on, and seek out online is not just entertainment. It’s a window into what you actually want, what you actually value, and what you actually find appealing. You can tell someone you’re committed while your algorithm is busy serving you an endless stream of content you actively chose to feed it. Those two things are in conflict, and one of them is more honest than the other.
If you’re in a relationship and you’re spending significant time engaging with people online who represent something you wish your partner were, that is worth sitting with. Not because looking at attractive people makes you a bad person. But because the pattern of what you seek out and engage with reflects something real about where your head is at.
The Audience You’re Actually Playing To
When a woman is publicly liking every photo of some shredded guy with a hundred thousand followers, she is not communicating anything to him. She is communicating something to everyone who can see her activity. Her partner. Her friends. Anyone paying attention. She is putting her preferences on display, and the display says something whether she intended it to or not.
The same is true for men leaving thirsty comments on model accounts while they have a partner at home. You are not invisible. You are not anonymous. You are telling the people around you exactly what you think is worth your attention and enthusiasm. If that’s not the impression you want to give, the fix is straightforward.
Your Online Behaviour Is Part of Your Character
People act like who they are online is separate from who they are in real life. It isn’t. It’s the same person with slightly lower inhibitions because there’s a screen involved. The things you do when you think nobody important is watching are actually the most accurate version of you. They’re the unedited cuts. They’re you without the performance.
If you wouldn’t walk up to someone in a bar and openly tell them they looked incredible while your partner was standing next to you, then doing the digital equivalent is not as harmless as you’re pretending it is. The medium is different. The message is the same.
Be Honest About What You Actually Want
If you’re single, like whatever you want. Follow whoever you want. That’s your business, and nobody else’s. But if you’re in a relationship and your online behaviour would make your partner uncomfortable, the question to ask is not how to hide it better. The question is why you’re doing it. What are you chasing? What are you looking for that you’re not finding where you are?
What you post, what you like, what you share, and what you comment on is a running record of what you actually value. Your partner can read it. Be the kind of person whose record you’re comfortable with them seeing. Because they’re seeing it either way.
