I Accidentally Liked My Ex's Photo From 2019

It was 11:43 PM. I was in bed, doing what adults do — aggressively stalking my ex's Instagram because I "just wanted to see how they were doing." They were doing fine. Annoyingly fine. New haircut, new friends, seemingly thriving. Classic. I was scrolling at full speed, confident in my invisibility, when it happened. My thumb slipped. A like. On a beach photo. From August 2019. I felt it before I saw it — that cold, full-body panic that starts in your stomach and travels up to your face in about 0.3 seconds. I unliked it immediately, obviously. But we both know that doesn't matter. The notification already went through. The damage was done. I put my phone face-down on my bed and just laid there, staring at the ceiling, doing a full risk assessment of my life choices. My options were: Pretend it never happened and hope they didn't check Instagram in the next 4 seconds Like three more recent photos to make it seem casual and intentional Delete my entire account and move to a different city I went with option 1. They texted me the next morning. Just: "lol" One word. No punctuation. No context. Just lol. I replied "haha wrong account" and have not opened Instagram since.

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