No matter how well you know someone, you can never be sure what’s going on in their head. The ulterior motives they might have.
Last week, Reddit user Careful_Pickle555 submitted a story to the ‘Am I the? [Jerk]†‘ told her 4.2 million members about the time her friend started secretly tracking her phone activity.
When the woman finally found out what was going on, the man tried to laugh it off and said it was just a harmless joke.
Their complete lack of remorse, however, made Careful Pickle even more cautious. Why was he spying on her? What did he see? Would he do something like that again?
Eventually, the woman severed all ties with her now ex-boyfriend. But as much as she thinks this was the best choice she could have made regarding the situation, others think she’s overreacting. So, Careful Pickle asked the internet to help her understand the whole ordeal.
This woman’s boyfriend started sending her weird and creepy texts and seemed to know more details about her life than he should
Image Credits: Anh Nguyen (not the actual photo)
Turns out he was spying on her phone
Image Credits: shutter speed (not the actual photo)
While Careful Pickle still can’t figure out how the guy was tracking her, stalkerware is easy to find. And use.
It is a poisonous class of software specially designed for tracking a phone while it runs stealthily in the background.
The purpose of Stalkerware is to record everything about the device, whether that be emails and texts, web browsing, location, calls, you name it.
Stalkerware is widely available in the Google Play Store and to a lesser extent in the Apple App Store, often under innocuous names like MobileTool, Agent, and Battery Saver. In fact, these apps have become such a common tool for digital domestic violence that Apple and Google are beginning to recognize that they are a problem.
From September 2020 to May 2021, the number of stalkerware infected devices increased by 63 percent, according to a study by internet security company Norton Labs.
†[Stalkerware] is extremely invasive, it’s a really big problem and it’s linked to one of the worst abuses I’ve seen in intimate partner abuse,” Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights organization, told The New York Times.
What makes it so problematic is the fact that it operates in a gray area. There are legitimate uses for surveillance apps, such as parental control software that monitors children online to protect them from predators. But this technology becomes stalkerware when it is secretly installed on someone else’s phone to spy on them without permission.
The scary thing is, the woman doesn’t know exactly how he did it; she can only guess
No wonder his stunt ruined the man’s friendship with Careful Pickle. As Christian L. Hart, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the Psychological Science program at Texas Woman’s University, points outtrust is particularly vulnerable.
“It’s a precious commodity that takes years to cultivate, but can be wasted in an instant,” explains Hart. “When someone breaks our trust, usually through dishonesty, neglect, or infidelity, we feel upset, hurt, angry, sad, and foolish. We are going to distrust that person because they have violated our faith and trust in them.”
The professor says that when people violate our trust, we usually withdraw when we can. “We don’t run the risk of putting them in a vulnerable position again. We are also becoming vigilant, looking for any evidence that they might undermine us or disappoint us again.”
So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Careful Pickle’s response. Moreover, judging by his actions, the man is not willing or able to save what is left of their friendship.
†[If we want to regain trust,] not only do we have to admit where we’ve fallen short, but we also have to understand and accept where the other person thinks we’ve failed them,” emphasizes Hart. “Apologies, remorse and remorse are necessary in restoring trust, but they may not be enough. Perhaps we should also accept punishment and expiation for our shortcomings.”
Because the man has shown no remorse, she thinks forgiveness is out of the question
People are sure that the original poster (OP) did the right thing by removing the man from her life