Don't Go There: How Keeping Tabs On Your Ex Post-Breakup Is Hurting You

The age-old question: Is it better to know or not know? Is ignorance really bliss when you are trying to get over someone? The answer is yes.

I've been there. You unfriend, block, unfollow and cut off communication, but a small part of you still wonders what that person is doing.

Is he or she dating? Is he or she as miserable without me as I am without him or her?

And then the thought becomes a slow-moving poison. It starts to spread through you, and the stretch of good days you've been having, blasting, "I look so good without you” by Jessie J turns into, “Does he look good without me?”

You've been doing well ever since it ended, or as well enough as you can be, and you've managed to keep your thoughts elsewhere and tell yourself it's a good thing you have moved on.

But, then the poison really starts to spread.

So you convince yourself that if you re-friend, unblock or look at his profile just once, even if that means getting on a friend's account to see it, you will be okay with what you come across.

You mentally prepare yourself that he could be dating someone new, and that's fine with you because in your mind, she probably looks like the wicked witch of the west, and she probably also really sucks.

She has to if she's with him, right? You decide one little look won't hurt.

Maybe you do it on a day where you wake up sad because you have a dream about him, the weather is a little cloudy, or you are feeling like a vindictive bitch.

You look. And he's dating. And she is gorgeous. According to her Facebook, she's smart as hell, too.

She has eyes that just scream out, “I'm a nice person,” and if that weren't enough, her plethora of pictures with a thousand friends with their arms around her seems to say enough.

So with a sinking heart, you send her picture to your friends, tell them to stalk her and hope one will lie to you and say she isn't pretty, even though you know it's mean of you to say.

Your truths are validated when they say, “Well … she probably has a really sh*tty personality.” Or, “Hey, she did you a favor by being with him.”

But the truth is, you don't feel like it's a favor at all. This new girl, with her arms around the sweater you got him for his birthday, represents who you used to be.

You're jealous, sad and half-wishing it was you again so you could take it all back to the beginning, and do it differently.

You wanted to know if he was dating, but now you actually know, and it's not a validating feeling for you because it represents how you weren't treated.

She's not the one who was lied to, belittled, f*cked over. Not the one who spent her Saturday nights crying because she was stood up.

You begin to feel infuriated that he didn't feel like you were worthy of being treated like that, but apparently this girl is.

It eats a hole in you. You begin to feel crazy again, with the same feelings arising from when you were together in the first place.

You comfort yourself by saying sooner or later, she'll know what she has gotten herself into, and you dodged a bullet.

But, you should've spared yourself these feelings in the first place, and the nights lacking sleep.

You should've listened to all of your friends who told you that you shouldn't go looking for things you don't want to see.

Take their advice. Don't allow yourself to waste your time and energy. Life is meant to be lived forward, not backward, and there is a reason it ended.

While it's unfortunate she is going to have to learn that lesson the hard way, she will learn that lesson. So stay away from stalking on your phone and computer, and live your life.

The less time you spend focusing on people who don't bring you positivity, the more time you will have to spend with those who actually care about you.