Do You Ever Troll Old Boyfriends Online?

I accidentally stumbled across a recent photo of an old boyfriend and his eyes are bulging and he's round in a bovine way. He looks like an angry thumb. I felt bad for him, at first, but I am so glad that he got the face and body he truly deserves.

R1 There's something kind of satisfying about it, isn't there?

OP- I can't do that because I've never had a boyfriend 😥

I'm tempted to look up some, but I never have.

R3 I'm sure you've had crushes.

Every few years, yeah.

One of them is doing nicely, (gay) married professor at the same liberal university for like 30 years. He was kind and soft and sweet and a little socially awkward.. I dumped him, just not enough lust/chemistry for me.

Another one became more of a loner and artist/recluse, though his work is interesting, I actually like it. I think he's poor though.

Another one is now selling himself as some sort of "life coach" and he's racked up at least two restraining orders in his history... 'nuff said. He was crazy when we dated. Nice big heavy dick but so not worth it.

My first boyfriend died of a heart attack. He was nice, he was 10 years older than me way back then and was the first man I ever had full-on sex with. I really liked him even after it ended, one of those rare painless breakups where both of us were feel like it just didn't feel like something that was meant to continue, and when he said it I just felt relieved and "same." Looking back, I don't think a 29 year old should have been pursuing 19 year olds, but I was eager to be deflowered and could have chosen worse!

Ok, I had a boyfriend break my heart. After we broke up, he insisted on taking me to Puerto Rico rather than his new boyfriend because we’d already arranged it (weird, huh?) We had sex a handful of times after, but damn him for making me think he wanted me back. I got to meet his mom and dad on the island, was a great trip, but he was also playing the field. He had an absolutely magical bubble ass, beautiful body, and was a nice guy. I can say now that I was in love with him for all the wrong reasons. Unlike him, I had come from a broken home, didn't go to college, and had left a violent relationship. Even if I was better prepared, I can finally say I don’t think it would’ve ever gone the way I wanted then.

After awhile he settled down with new boyfriend and was with him for a DECADE. Oddly, he had met him on the dance floor while going out with me one night. Awhile later I met up with them again at a block party, and his boyfriend was 100 yards from him and he was entertaining several other guys dancing. This was something I knew I couldn’t agree on, despite knowing he had an active social life. He was hawt back then.

I am happily married now, I have no reason to go looking behind my shoulder. But I did go back and look and realize it would’ve never worked out, and he looks like a Puerto Rican thumb now, just like his dad 25 years ago. He had bad breath, OCD, and control issues and a porn addiction.

I left NYC years ago and just like leaving the city can say I loved the version of him back then, not today’s version but that’s not quite right either. I loved the IDEA of him, but the real person disappointed me, should’ve made a clean break, wasn’t ready for commitment,

and moved on before I did, I have done this to many others, so there’s that.

That breakup was the BEST thing to ever happen to me because the tailspin it sent me into forced me to evaluate my entire life and priorities, seek therapy and friendships, and gain a healthy perspective and calm center I didn’t have before.

[quote] Looking back, I don't think a 29 year old should have been pursuing 19 year olds

Oh, the horror. You were practically still in the cradle.

R7 I wish I could sort through your story better because it sounds interesting. It feels disjointed, like you wrote it through tears.

We never had sex or dated but we were clearly in love. It was agonizing but we were best friends and that was good enough. For one year we lived together in the fraternity house and looking back it was, for me, the second best time of my life. We talked about our feelings exactly once when we were drunk. We said we would never love anyone else as much. I didn’t lie then. But I met someone years later. That became the number one best time of my life. My first love who I never had sex with married a woman and had two kids and we lost touch. I looked him up every few years online. He was really successful. Investment banker. He had that great big Picket Fence he could never, ever risk coming out for. He passed away in 2013 in his forties of cancer. That broke my heart. It still does when I think about it. I am still with my partner. He is still the best time in my life.

R10, wow, so your sense of it is that guy was gay and closeted, not just temporarily bicurious and close with you for a year?

R11 yes we were in love. Not having sex was actually proved it. Our relationship spanned about five years. Colllege plus one. But we only lived together one year.

He was a gay man. And we ended our friendship both knowing we had to because he could not be on the path on needed to go on. He never said the words ‘I’m Gay’ but I knew, he knew I knew. It was and understood truth.

I always wonder what would have happened if he did come out. We likely would have been a couple. Maybe I wouldn’t have met my partner Who knows? I have been with him over 25 years.

R12 If he never said he was gay, did he say he was in love with you? If not, how do you know?

It sounds like 5 years of frustration.

Just one. He was an aspie who destroyed my self-esteem and made me go a little crazy for a while. The last time I looked him up, he was using they pronouns wearing a neon pink party city wig with with lipstick. I have zero problems with NB/non-conforming people but he looked like a cheap streetwalker.

I haven't looked him up since. I'm confident that he's a total attention-seeking loser who gets laid less often than me. He made me feel like I wasn't attractive enough during our relationship so it was pleasing to know that I look way better than him.

Yes r13, as mentioned we talked about once when drunk (in my r10 post) where we acknowledged our feelings and the complexity of the situation at the time. Because we were drunk during that conversation we used that as a convenient shield to protect us in future conversations but we did allude to it and acknowledge it in our own ways. It is hard to describe the non verbal. But we knew. And it was also very painful for both of us.

I've googled some to see what they were up to but I don't really have unfinished business with anyone.

I haven't trolled him online but back when both of us were in our '20s, still living at home--I liked a guy, who kept coming on to me then sort of backing off in various ways. We were both good looking. The gist was, he didn't want to kiss or do anything I would consider a turn-on, he just wanted to do hand jobs because he liked girls and wanted to get married some day, despite having done things with guys before (more guys than I had been with, actually). Kept asking me to hang out, and I started to have more of a crush on him, but he didn't want to be involved and he was driving me crazy with this game, so I dropped it. He moved away for a long time, but recently I drove by his parents' old house (which I have to do, anyway) and I saw him in the yard. I was very surprised. If it wasn't his old house I probably wouldn't have known it was him, because all that was 30 years ago. I've seen them one other time, so I figure he's living with that guy.

*I skipped a line. I saw him in the yard with another guy. A guy who looked older than either of us but may not be. It's obvious they live together.

OP - are his initials TM?

This thread made me want to Google a partner I broke up with in 1992, after 10 years together. The parting was acrimonious with him cheating on me, but I made it a point never to badmouth him, especially with mutual friends. He quickly picked up with another guy, and I see that they are still together, in Santa Fe. Apparently, they married in 2015. What surprised me was that not only had he gained a lot of weight, but he was in a wheelchair in a 2023 picture. Not sure if that was temporary or something more long-term. Luckily, he still had all of his luxurious hair, now grey. I'm as bald as my grandfather was. I still have mixed feelings about how he ended everything. I was willing to work to save the relationship, but he wasn't. I did take some pleasure in seeing that I was much better off financially than he is. I hope he's happy.

I like all my ex-boyfriends. I have good taste.

Even though I wouldn’t go back to any of them, I am always curious to know how things turned out. The three before my partner? Pornstar, very early onset Lewy body dementia, and a mysterious death during the pandemic.

Yes. Mostly interested in unrequited crushes from early in college who turned out to be straight. They're still straight, lol.

Am in contact with two ex-es via FB. One was a 26-year relationship that did not end well. I now feel sorry for him, but wish him well. He's bloated, chronically in debt, and older but without retirement savings. He's still with the much younger boytoy he left me for and I'm happy about that. Still care about his well-being. The other ex is a fuckbuddy from college. We still crack each other up. His husband is even funnier.

I found out via stalking that two other old boyfriends died. One was 17 years my senior, brilliant, but bat shit crazy, so no surprise there. He was an ex-Mormon who ended up back in a small town in Utah. I cried over the other one. He pissed me off (as he did his other bf's, who are FB friends) but he died quickly of stomach cancer after finally settling down with his true love at a relatively young age.

Have helped my husband track down a few exes. The main asshole who swindled and lied to him ended up in Florida, where he belongs. There were two deaths, one of whom was an older priest.

Yes, R9, I spent years getting over him, many years lonely, and kind of truncated that story in a rush.

What is important when things go bad is to take off the rose colored glasses, and recognize that we model relationships upon how our parents treated each other- consciously and unconsciously (unless you’ve undergone therapy or delved into psychology) . Unless you pay attention and make changes, you will repeat the same relationship with every person until you have this realization.

Each partner comes into the relationship with different expectations, as gay men we’re attracted by appearance, but there is very little else comparable to the heterosexual version- we don’t meet friends of other families growing up or in school, parents aren’t endorsing or supporting the relationship or within an established community, etc. These girders of support strengthen straight relationships in a way gay life could never do.

Finally, a lot of us are codependent even as single people- a lot of my happiness today is self induced and I share with husband- I don’t rely completely upon him for my happiness or contentment. The one very attractive thing about my ex was he had a fountain of happiness himself that drew people in and is very sexy in youth. It’s what drew me in, but also question when we broke up and I didn’t have access to it anymore.

You have to be willing and I spent years developing my own fountain, (had to walk through a few patches of sadness to do it) but it was that breakup that kindled the desire and awareness to find it for myself and not put up with anything less in relationships anymore

No one else can do this for you.

Shifting fortunes... One married a succe$$ful man and now lives in a glhallf-million dollar home in Oregon. One died of Sepsis (Covid-related? He was heavy...); one married but has had myriad health problems (broke his back, etc.). Has a job as manager of a Cracker Barrel so is still semi-closeted (in his own mid); one is on the sexual offender list.

About ten years ago I looked up my-ex-the-cop (who I considered to be "the love of my life") on FB. My oh my! She'd been such a boyishly handsome devil that even gay men thought she was hot -- 5'10", very broad shoulders, short brown hair and brown eyes.

My mouth literally fell open when I saw her photo! She'd gotten fat (she was a retired cop by this time) and her somewhat narrow eyes had sunken into her now-chubby face. Damn, did I dodge a bullet!

Call me a shallow bitch, but I was pleased. And the way she left me, she deserved as bad if not worse, so I felt vindicated.

Ha. Sometimes what goes around really does come around.

R19 No. Does my story sound familiar?

No, but yes, once.

Normally it takes one of two paths: we remain friends or forget each other. I had one man whom I dated very briefly long distance. He would get very far ahead of himself in where our relation might be headed then switch to indifference. We parted on agreeable terms but had no contact for ages when he emailed after 3 years of no contact to say that his dog had died.

I was travelling at the time and when I had not offered my condolences with sufficient punctuality (36 hours), he caught me off-guard by phone, and set about to ripping me to shreds for being a shit person who evidently didn't care about his dog grief and my lack of curiosity about his subsequent life. I listened to a good 10-minutes of this then said that he should cross me off his books as a person who wishes him neither failure nor fortune, but who simply has no interest in what becomes of him nor interest in having any further contact.

He shortly tried to look at my profile in LinkedIn and left likes or dislikes to a couple social media posts of a very neutral sort. I blocked him to the extent that I could and tightened my security settings because he had, as I had discovered, an extreme temper and a habit of picking fights when in a sour mood.

So, yes, I did search for him on social media if only to take some effort to keep him at a distance.

He was s

I once had a boyfriend who was having financial problems when I met him. He had gotten himself into debt, and he eventually had to file for personal bankruptcy. While I was with him, I helped him out by buying him furniture, cooking supplies and utensils (he loved to cook), and I usually paid the bill when we'd go out together. Mind you, I wasn't making a lot of money myself at the time, but I didn't have debt.

We broke up after three years together, and I heard he had found an older boyfriend who had money. I decided to try and look him up online and found his address. He had moved to another state, and when I looked up his address on Google maps, I saw he was living in a big, beautiful house. I thought, "That bitch was bankrupt when we broke up and now she's living like a queen." Pissed me off.

No- I don’t troll anyone. Sheesh..

R30 Seems like you're trolling right now.

Not an ex but an ex coworker that landed a cushy corporate job based on the thinnest veil of lies of a resume!

As stretched from the truth as a prolapsed asshole!

Yeah. They haven’t aged well

One of them who acted like a little bitch when we broke up starting losing his hair within a year. It was hilarious because he was in his 20s. I thought I was just being critical until a friend was telling me they had seen him about two years after the breakup and he was looking gaunt and bald.

I've never been on social media so I don't know how it works.

I've thought about doing a search out of curiosity but I wouldn't want him to know I was looking.

Is stealth searching possible?

R35 Yes. Especially if you use the DuckDuckGo browser.

R35 You can search anonymously on LinkedIn and through whitepages.com.

R35 You can also do True People Search anonymously.

R22 "Pornstar, very early onset Lewy body dementia".

Don't mention Lewy body Dementia and fast-living. Muriel will cancel you!!!!

R39 See below

When I was 25, my first "serious" job was as the manager of a bank. One of my employees was a part-timer, a 19-year-old community college student who was the very definition of a dumb jock. He had a beautiful buff body, ass to die for, blonde wavy hair, all American boy good looks, but definitely not the brightest bulb in the package.

The kid couldn't balance his cash drawer at night to save his life, but he tried so hard and was so sweet and I had a low key crush on him. Sometimes he would come over to my apartment after work in his gym shorts just to shoot the shit, and I would struggle not to leap all over him. Part of me thought he would probably be game to mess around, but I also knew it was absolutely verboten to try anything with a subordinate.

I never thought he would amount to much, simply because he wasn't that smart. A few months ago, he randomly popped into my head, so I looked him up online. To my surprise, he ended up getting a Masters degree in information technology and is now the head of IT at a major corporation. I was so happy to see he had become a success. Sadly, he's now married with three kids. Also sadly, he didn't age well. He's in his 50s and looks like a typical suburban dad who drinks a lot of beer on the weekends and wears Bermuda shorts with knee-length white socks and sandals when he mows his lawn.

But when he was 19 and in his beefcake prime, damn, he was to die for. At least I have those memories.

[quote] Sadly, he's now married with three kids.

Since he's straight, what were you expecting?

I have a personal rule: don't google friends and relatives, and I include exes as friends (even the one who I didn't speak to for almost a decade). I learned the hard way when the internet was relatively new (late 90s) and discovered some family history that I would rather have not. Nevertheless, when visiting my family a few weeks ago, we were discussing a portrait of our grandmother hanging in a public building and wondered if we could see it; brother suggested I google it to see if it was still on display and if we could access it. Well... I inadvertently discovered our grandmother filed for divorce about 8 months before our grandfather died (of natural causes, there was no story there beyond the tragedy of cancer). While not earth-shattering — Grandpa died well before I was born, Grandma passed when I was a teenager, and that was a long, long time ago — it reminded me why I don't google friends and relatives.

R43 Didn't your parents tell you?

I’m unclear… did you troll him or not OP? Looking him up isn’t trolling him. Trolling an ex is wasted energy anyway.

No, R44. When I found the record (and all I did was search Grandma's name and the building in which her portrait supposedly hangs), I relayed my findings to my brother and sister and asked if Mom had ever mentioned this; neither recalled her ever speaking about it. I'm convinced Mom would have told me if she knew because she told me all sorts of stories about growing up, her relationship with my grandparents including the fact that Grandpa was the kind of alcoholic that did really well 99% of the time but when he fell off the wagon it was spectacular, and that Grandma was a hypochondriac always sure she was on death's doorstep. The point is she never tried to hide anything about her side of the family in contrast with my father's side which hid everything. I'm used to finding out I have a long-lost outlaw great uncle who spawned a whole branch of the family tree that we haven't spoken to in 75+ years, another great uncle who was a polygamist, or that one uncle killed another (literally; they fought and uncle pushed other uncle off the garage roof impaling him on a fence post, but the family always claimed it was an accident); there were always crazy family secrets and stories from dad's large side of the family. So as you see, I have reason to never Google friends and family.