Click of Shame - A Friday Night Harmless Ex-Stalk Turns Into Digital Horror Show

Skye Waverley | Social Reporter | Sutherland Shire Gazette

6 September 2025

What began as a harmless Friday night in Gymea - takeaway pizza, sauv blanc, Netflix - descended into one of modern life’s darkest digital nightmares: a local woman accidentally liking her ex-boyfriend’s Instagram post from 2017.

The woman, who requested anonymity but admitted she absolutely should’ve just gone to bed, described the incident as a “catastrophic curiosity spiral.”

“My husband was out with the boys, and I thought- hey, I wonder what Tom’s doing now? Next thing, I’m 63 weeks deep, flicking through tagged photos, analysing his mate’s hairline recession, his girlfriend’s dodgy curtains. Then my thumb slipped. It betrayed me.”

The betrayal: a glowing red heart on a six-year-old photo of Tom proudly holding a large fish.

It lasted 47 seconds before she unliked it - but the psychological carnage had already taken hold. “Do they get a notification if you unlike? Is it worse to leave it, like some kind of digital autograph? I don’t even like him anymore. I was just… bored. And now he knows.”

Local digital behaviour expert Dr Wendy Pratt calls this “the Schrödinger’s Cat of social shame.” “Until you know if he saw the notification, you both did and did not humiliate yourself. That uncertainty is the true punishment.”

By Saturday morning, neighbours reported seeing her pacing the kitchen presumably whispering, “Maybe he didn’t check his phone. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe Optus went down again.”

But he wasn’t. By 9am, Tom posted a cryptic Story: ‘Funny who pops up after all these

Experts agree the only thing more humiliating would’ve been accidentally reacting with a  emoji.

Ex-Stalk