Always keep the curtains closed

During my sophomore year of college, I shared an on-campus apartment with three other girls.  I grew especially close with the girl I shared a bedroom with, Erica, and we quickly developed a slew of inside jokes.  We shared laughs, gallons of Crystal Light, and crushes.

There was this boy who was kind of a campus legend.  I mean, this guy was good-looking. Like the underwear-model, I-want-to-lick-barbeque sauce-off-his-stomach kind of beautiful.

We had decorated our room with funny pictures printed off the internet and decided to photo bomb our window with pictures we stole from this boy’s Facebook. Yes, we were cyberstalkers.  We added pictures of celebs to make it a little more acceptable… shirtless Jack Gyllenhal, Justin Timberlake, and Ryan Reynolds.

As my luck would have it, we ran into this boy and his roommates at a party one night.  I ended up talking to his friend the majority of the night and invited him back to my apartment to watch The Ringer (and for a make-out sesh).

One of my roommates was sleeping on the couch when we came in, so we decided to watch the movie in my room.  We went upstairs and I snuck into the closet to change while he settled in.  Halfway through pulling off my Spanx, I heard him ask “what’s this?”

I figured he was admiring one of my collages and came out to see.

He was standing at the window, staring at the picture of his roommate.  The picture that we had cut him out of.

I ran over and tried to close the curtain to hide the evidence, but it was too late.  He made up an excuse about having to go and pretty much ran out.

The next morning, Erica and I tore down all the pictures and never spoke of it again.

And that’s how cyberstalking cost me my chance at true love.