You know something is wrong in a relationship when you’ve memorized how many people your partner follows on Instagram. “It went up by three last week,” a friend texted me. Her boyfriend was being distant so she became a social media detective. “They’re all 25-year-old models-slash-influencers and he’s liked their most recent posts.”
In a better world where nobody lives under tech totalitarianism, this wouldn’t be something to worry about. But in this world where we’ve been given far too many tools to scrupulously monitor the nuances of each other’s online activity, a man following three hot young influencers is tantamount to an orgy in a motel. It’s bad news — and it might mean your relationship is on the outs.