Why You Should Google Your Ex-Boyfriend

And then what you should do afterwards.

By

Kimberly Witt

 
Published September 11, 2026
Black-and-white halftone illustration showing a large computer cursor positioned over a profile image in a grid of portraits
AARP (Getty Images, 3)

It hit me out of nowhere. I was driving to the grocery store when I heard “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain on the oldies station. On the oldies station! How rude! I thought. But then my mind wandered back to the year the song was released and the ex-boyfriend the song reminded me of. I recalled the road trip when we listened to it together for the first time, experiencing the heart palpitations of young love.

I’ve been in a committed relationship for decades, but I still found myself thinking, I wonder what he’s up to now.

I know this is a dangerous experiment because if I’m not careful, I can be the victim of Fading Affect Bias (FAB). This means memories with negative emotions are forgotten faster than memories with positive ones. In other words, when I look back on my life, I often remember just the good stuff.

Because of FAB, when I harken back to my senior prom, I envision myself standing in a circle with my classmates, belting out Green Day’s “Good Riddance,” looking with love at faces I’d known for years. While that memory might be mostly true, I forget that my long-time crush was at the dance with my best friend, my dress was an out-of-season clearance purchase, and I probably had a cold sore.

In many ways, this is a helpful coping mechanism. My big hair and broken hearts can stay in the past, thank you very much. But FAB is also why I’m hesitant to ruminate too much on past relationships.

Still, thanks to Edwin McCain, curiosity inevitably got the best of me.

Because we live in the age of information, I didn’t need to hire a private investigator; I just needed my smartphone.

When I got home, I entered his name into a Google search bar, clicked on a promising LinkedIn profile, and sent up a quick prayer: Please let me have my LinkedIn settings correct. Don’t let him know I’m searching for him! Suddenly, a face forever young in my memory now had wrinkles and a balding head.

His career details allowed me to narrow down my geographic search. Facebook and Instagram provided more details. He was married. His profile photo showed his family. Whoa! That kid is a Mini-Me if I’ve ever seen one!

I found news articles related to his work where more details could be sleuthed: Kids’ names (Interesting choice!), career accolades (Good for him!), a parent’s obituary (How sad!).

These random snippets of an ex's life are like a skeleton. They provide a frame, but I was missing the flesh that makes a body whole. Is he still so skinny he could borrow my shorts? Does he hear “I’ll Be” and remember me? Does his wife cry during happy movies? What kind of dad is he? Did he coach his son’s t-ball team? Does their family dance in the kitchen when cleaning up after dinner like ours does?

With Fading Affect Bias, as I consider old relationships, I also have an incomplete framework. I think of the sweet time he brought me a two-liter of Diet Coke on a first date because he remembered how much I liked it. But I forget about the painful breakup and the hours we spent on the phone, trying to make things work when the relationship was past its expiration date. I remember the butterflies of a first kiss but forget how I never felt accepted by his friends.

This dangerous variety of nostalgia tinges my Google searches with regret and missed opportunity.

So I performed another search, this time looking at the skeleton of my life. I skimmed through the social media profiles, the neglected LinkedIn account, the bylines and biographical information. Yes, I was glimpsing an incomplete life, but this time I knew the rest of the story.

From my LinkedIn profile I can see I’ve spent years in a classroom. From real life I know I’ve made lifelong connections with students and collected hundreds of hilarious (in hindsight) stories, like the time a student read semi-explicit poetry while a principal observed my lesson. From Instagram photos I can see how handsome my husband is, how happy we look as we smile at the camera. From real life I know he makes me tea every night and only gets mildly annoyed when I leave every cabinet open while making dinner.

I know the bribery that resulted in the smiling family portraits, the squabble that happened off-camera during the vacation photos, and the constant frustration during that certain job on my LinkedIn resume. These are the ligaments and sinews that put muscle on this Google-search skeleton, and I’m grateful for them all.

So yes, my rose-colored tech temptation makes me wonder for a fleeting moment if life would’ve been better if I had made different decisions. My amateur detective skills send my imagination down meandering paths with outcomes vastly different from my own, all leading back to a giant “What if?” Thankfully, I don’t have access to a time machine, so I’ll never find out.

Then I see last night’s teacup on the counter and hear the uproarious laughter of my young adult sons drifting in from the driveway. I close my search tab and step back into my real life. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the full-color life I chose.

Do you ever Google your ex? Let us know in the comments below.

Kimberly Witt is an Iowa transplant placing roots in St. Paul, Minnesota. Together with her husband of more than 20 years, she is raising two amazing young adult sons born in Ethiopia. An adjunct English professor and freelancewriter, she spends her free time exploring her city and delighting in everyday life. She writes about the messiness of parenting, faith, and middle-agedness.