6 Harsh Truths About Being The Girlfriend Who Snoops


We all know that curiosity killed the cat, but in most cases, we don't really care. It's not like we knew that cat anyway, and an open Facebook page might as well be the last cupcake at the office party—it doesn't stand a chance.

Call us crazy if you will, but the snooping girlfriend often sees an inbox as a window of opportunity long before we realize that it's actually a relationship death trap. Of course, deep down we know that no good will ever come from being a snoop, but when the temptation is there, it's hard to resist taking a peek into a part of his life that we don't normally have access to. 

Here, six women dish (myself included) on a time they decided to play detective.

1. He might know you better than you think.
Remember when you were a kid and you knew where your parents were hiding your Christmas presents? Well I do, and I remember rummaging through their closet, uncovering all of my awesome gifts, and crying for two days because I ruined my own damn Christmas.

Stephanie had a similar experience when she hacked into her boyfriend's email account, and though there was less crying, she still stressed for weeks over absolutely nothing. "Once I looked through Chris's email, and saw that he was chatting with his aunt about getting me a Coach purse for Christmas," she said. "I was so nervous, because that is just so not my style, and I was imagining getting this gift that I would completely hate. It ended up being really simple and cute, and completely my taste!"

2. If you've already decided to go looking for something, chances are you'll find it … even if you're making it up.
"One time my girlfriend Liz thought that her boyfriend was leaving college to go home and hang out with some girl on the weekends," said Colleen. "This was when Blackberry cell phones were still a thing, so she got this girl's PIN number from Facebook, and since I was the only one with a Blackberry, we added her to my Blackberry Messenger." Hold your crazy-accusations, it gets worse.

"We then pretended to be Liz's boyfriend Sean, saying that he got a new cell phone. Because the conversation was turning out to be nothing unusual, we started calling her 'Babe,' and saying things like 'Can't wait to see you,'" said Colleen. "Since her reaction was non-existent, we realized that she probably just thought that Sean was a weirdo, and un-friended her. Liz eventually told Sean what she did during an argument, and obviously, he thought she was insane."

3. You need to think twice before pressing "send."
Alex was staying at her boyfriend's house over the weekend, and saw his mid-afternoon shower as a golden opportunity to get her snoop on. "I was on his computer and noticed that his Facebook was up, so obviously, I had to look through his chat messages," she said. "Who wouldn't?" (Refer to first paragraph: I told you so!) "So I see a message from this girl who I knew was always all over my boyfriend, and she just really pissed me off," said Alex, who doesn't remember the exact subject of the conversation, but says that it was flirtatious enough to enrage her.

"I immediately went to text my best friend saying 'I just went through Kevin's Facebook messages, and he's been talking to Laura. WTF, EW!'" After hitting send, Alex heard her boyfriend shut off the shower, so she closed out his messages. "He comes into his room, picks up his phone, and repeats the exact message I sent Laura aloud, and starts laughing and repeating the 'WTF, EW!' part of the text over and over," she said.

Alex's lesson learned? "Don't snoop, but if you do, double check who you're sending your bitchy text message to."

4. Some secrets are good secrets … until you snoop.
Naomi's trust was beginning to wear thin with her ex-boyfriend, and she figured that she had caught him red-handed when she saw him texting suspicious numbers. "I looked over my ex's shoulder and saw a few phone numbers in his inbox that didn't have a contact name, so of course, I assumed he was getting random girls' phone numbers at bars or something, and looked through the messages, Naomi said. "Turns out, he was texting a bunch of people from Craigslist about buying me a surprise gift." Oops! 

5. What happens in "a break" doesn't always stay in the break.
"One night I was going through The Devil's Facebook when he was sleeping," said Nicole. If you haven't picked up on it, the devil she's referring to is her ex-boyfriend. "I found all of these messages from this girl, talking about how they hooked up, and how he wished he could be snuggling on her chest," she said. "Mind you, the messages were from a period when we were 'on a break,' but after Ross and Rachel we all know that breaks are bullsh*t, so of course, I went crazy and woke him up, calling him out on it."

Nicole says that the two were having relationship problems to begin with, hence the break where The Devil partook in all of his chest snuggling. "I'm not sure if they ever hooked up again, but I will always go with my gut. I knew if I went searching, I would find something, and it would eat him alive if I found it. It did, and honestly because we were on the break, I didn't care as much as I made it seem. I just wanted him to feel guilty about it."

6. Sometimes you're the sneaky jerk.
As I said earlier, I am not immune to the power of female-craziness, and when a stalking-situation presents itself, I'm there. I was having one of those toss-and-turn kind of nights, and the fact that my ex and I were cooped up in my twin-sized college bed wasn't exactly helping my frustration. Nor was his snoring.

Anyway, it soon dawned on me that I had the perfect opportunity to go searching for a way to ruin my otherwise awesome relationship. I entered his pass code with ease (since I obviously knew what it was, because any type of password withholding behavior obviously correlates with cheating, or lying …obviously). I spent the next 15 minutes scrolling through boring conversations about football games and Game of Thrones, and by the time I had reached January, I was actually beginning to fall back asleep.

And then I saw them: his text messages to a random number, expressing how excited he was for her to get off of work and come over, because he just missed her so much. I went crazy. I was enraged! How could he be such a sneaky jerk?!

I automatically went to program this home-wrecker's digits into my phone, prepared to call it later and get to the bottom of the situation. When I finished typing, my best friend's name popped up on my screen … because I had been texting him from her phone at work … and I forgot about it. Yep. I laughed myself to sleep.