Cyber-sleuthing Or Cyber-snooping?

One evening I received a text message from someone who is seeing another guy. Since I have no intention of revealing who these people are, for the purposes of this episode of The McVie Show let’s call them by the following pseudonyms:

John, the text sender
Paul, the guy John’s seeing
George, Paul’s ex

John told me that he stumbled upon George’s blog. That blog contained detailed stories of the time George and Paul were still together. Paul doesn’t know that John has read the “sordid stories” of him and George.

The moment I read John’s text, something about it didn’t sit well with me. But I couldn’t immediately pinpoint nor articulate it, so I asked John some questions first. In the course of our texting back and forth, I asked John what was his objective of “cyber-sleuthing” through George’s blog entries when it’s all in the past.

He replied: “It’s a good way to understand the present. We are all creatures of our past.”

I realized that two things bothered me. First, when starting a relationship, shouldn’t both parties start with a clean slate? It’s not like we’re wiping off the past as “It didn’t happen!” but rather we allow the present to matter more, so that the relationship can have a future. Second, John’s “information” regarding Paul is George’s take on things. Even if George is the most even-sided writer in the whole wide world, it still is George’s word, not Paul’s. I thought it would be fairer if John would also ask for Paul’s take on what happened in the past.

So I texted back: “But shouldn’t you give Paul a clean slate? And shouldn’t you give him the choice to reveal himself to you, instead of snooping behind his back?”

I guess the “snooping behind his back” was a little too much, because John texted back: “Don’t jump too fast. I said to ‘Understand the present’ and not to judge. We are shaped by our past; we could learn from it or not.”

So I pulled back and said: “That info is just from George’s perspective. And I think it’s still going behind Paul’s back. But that’s just my take on things.” And that’s how we ended our text conversation that night.

The thing is, even though what John did bothered me, I understand precisely why he did it and, truth be told, I would have done exactly the same thing had I been in his shoes. But knowing me, I’d eventually end up feeling uncomfortable, because reading the blog would raise questions in me.

These are questions that I still don’t have answers to, nor a definite stand on them:

• How trusting are you as a partner? Do you prefer to know who your partner is in an “organic way,” meaning knowledge is given willingly from him and/or from other people close to him? Or is it okay for you to hire a private investigator and get a background check on your partner?
• Shouldn’t understanding his past matter more to him than to you? Self-knowledge will help him deal with his past and who he’s become. As a partner, shouldn’t your concern be more with his present? So should John have told Paul about George’s blog, so Paul will have an idea on George’s take on things?
• Speaking of openness, should John be honest and tell Paul that he’s read George’s blog? Or are some things better left unsaid?

Human nature and human curiosity being what they are, I completely understand why John (or I for that matter) will want to take a peek at George’s blog entries.

But I wonder if I have it in me to just back away from reading all of it.

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(P.S. – Dear John, I really want you to remain anonymous, so help me out here by not commenting, hahaha! Or if you really, really want to comment, write it in such a way that people wouldn’t know it’s you.)