The ‘friends’ of others: how Facebook makes stalkers of us all

It’s become a given: we are all stalkers now. Thanks to Google, Twitter, Facebook and the fact that absolutely nobody seems to have the faintest idea about privacy settings, it is easier to keep track of people on the other side of the world than ever it was to snoop on a village neighbour from behind the safety of a lace curtain. But a strange and sinister new phenomenon has begun to emerge. Call it secondary stalking. Even the stalkers are being stalked now.

This was brought home to me the other night when I was having dinner with one of my closest friends, who I will call Andrew (gay, as it happens, so no romantic implications in what follows). I’d been aware for some time that Andrew is one of my stalkers, totally unnecessarily as I tell him everything anyway, when the subject of an ex came up. ‘He’s propositioning every woman he knows under 30,’ sneered Andrew somewhat maliciously, which is all very well except for one thing.