*Love snooping on old ‘friends’ online because it makes you feel better about your life? Join the club, says Grazia’s Anna Silverman *
Scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed, I skim straight past my friend’s third upload of wedding snaps, barely register my cousin’s rooftop bar selfie and yawn at the tenth picture my sister has shared of her son this week.
But my finger hovers over Jenny*’s status, which says, ‘I don’t know why I bother’ and I smile. It’s possibly not a good smile. Let me explain...
It started when we were nine and she cut a sleeve off my brand-new coat. My world ended (very briefly) and I ran two felt-tip pens dry by scribbling furiously about the matter in my Pocahontas diary. By year six, it was a lot more serious: she wouldn’t let me be Mel C in our Spice Girls’ routine. I cried in a toilet cubicle while trying to scrub my temporary Sporty Spice tattoos off so no one would see how freakishly prepared I’d been. In secondary school, she told my first boyfriend I had a disease on my tongue – which was actually a huge help because I was far too scared to kiss him anyway. But then, when we were in sixth form, she spread a vicious rumour about my close friend and that was it. We’ve been mortal enemies ever since.
Of course, that was 10 years ago and, since then, everyone added everyone on Facebook, and we frenemies were united once again. And yet, instead of deleting her when we finally completely lost touch a couple of years ago, I keep her around, lingering on my feed – there so I can have a little snoop, even though she irks me. And the worst part? I get immense pleasure from seeing how boring her life appears to be. In short, I’ve ‘schadenfriended’ her.
And it seems there are plenty like me. ‘I enjoy a Facebook cull every so often, but I have four or five people who I deliberately keep,’ says Danielle, 28, a PA from Chester. ‘I like to know that I can keep an eye on them, even though I hate them. One girl I stalk was the hot one who everybody fancied at school, but now I enjoy the fact that she peaked at 16 and it’s been downhill ever since. I don’t doubt that it’s all down to ancient jealousy,’ adds Danielle, ‘but occasionally, it’s fun to snoop if it makes you feel good about yourself.’
Rachel*, 31, an account director from Glasgow, realised she had a case of schadenfriend when she couldn’t bring herself to delete a group of women who had picked on her at school. ‘I was the awkward, gangly one who had crazy hair before I realised you’re not meant to brush curls. I was a natural target and the cool, sporty girls just went for me. But I’m pleased to see they blossomed too early. I hope the ones who thought they were the best back then see that I’m now engaged – and able to deal with my curls.’
According to Irene Levine, a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, finding out that the school bully hasn’t amounted to much conveys a sense of karma. ‘The bully didn’t really “get away with” acting that way,’ she says. ‘It’s a reminder that you emerged from a difficult period in your own life with your ego still intact; you can feel proud of your resilience and your self-growth.’
She explains that keeping in contact with these people on social media may be a way of showing them they didn’t get the best of you. While the bully may have seemed very powerful when you were her victim, now you feel a sense of satisfaction and vindication because you’ve achieved more than she did.’
But it works in other ways, too. Rachel admits she’s also guilty of relationship schadenfriend after two of her exes cheated on her. She deliberately stays friends with them in the hope they’re looking at her profile. ‘I want them to see me doing well, just like you’d want to look super-hot if you bumped into them in the street,’ she says. ‘I want them to regret treating me how they did, and I also relish watching them do badly.’
Angie*, 28, an accountant from Belfast, says she deliberately stalks a girl on her newsfeed who posts pictures of herself leaning against expensive cars like Ferraris. The girl fell out with Angie’s friends at school, so she shares the pictures with her WhatsApp friends group so they can laugh at her antics. ‘In the past, if people wondered what girls from uni and school had ended up doing, they had to throw a reunion,’ adds Angie. ‘We don’t need to now because we get to follow them online. I probably stalk the ones I hate more than the ones I like.’
Levine is keen to stress that the urge to compare ourselves to others is completely natural. ‘Our friends and acquaintances can serve as barometers that help us judge and define ourselves,’ she explains. ‘Friends can be role models whose successes we try to emulate. It’s normal to feel envious when friends seem to have more than we do or appear to be more successful.’
Still, for all the guilty pleasure I get from a schadenfriending session, I do know it’s not right. I guess I’ve got two choices: either banish those thoughts of smugness when I see the mean girls’ dreary lives. Or go nuclear: unfriend, unfriend, unfriend.