idk, this one doesn't seem that unhinged in the grand scheme of things. Like obviously the behavior was unacceptable, but I think its a position many pretty reasonable people could find themselves in.
Nah this is unhinged, and deeply controlling behaviour. If someone is checking your location constantly and giving you grief for every difference in reported vs actual location, then you’re forced to give full account of your whereabouts at all times and justify your destinations.
Not long ago if you left your house you were unreachable. In fact, the only way someone was reachable was if they were home or at work and had a phone there. Imagine that, just not knowing where and how people were at all times.
I did it for some time back in like 2011 or so; I used a dumbphone as a daily driver and only took calls on it and a landline in the place I was staying at the time. Nothing about my life got noticeably worse and instead I just read books a lot more. I did miss map navigation a lot, though, which lead to me begrudgingly going back to smartphones and 'relapsing' in a way. I don't think we need to be that intense but I think a lot of us can massively simplify our digital presence and not miss a whole lot.
edit to say that covid also honestly complicates this a ton for me personally and a lot of the more vulnerable population since I/we pretty much only exist digitally until society collectively gets our heads out of our asses about all that...but I do still think its worth thinking about what you really need and want out of it. Even in my case I can and do unplug frequently.
Keep the applications you want, in exchange for using the thing being slightly more of a pain in the ass so you use it less overall. And you can read it clearly in daylight, which is nice
When I leave the house I just mute my phone and put it in my pocket - no vibration, no ringing. I think it works pretty well personally. Depending on your personality, it might also work for you, at least as an initial step.
I'm glad he divorced his paranoid stalker of a wife. He just wanted to relax and have a beer after work at the brewery without telling his wife once, and she turned it into all this nonsense. Then she stalked his location constantly and made a big deal about him getting fast food without telling her once. Imagine being trapped in a marriage with such a controlling wife that you can't even go to McDonalds or have a beer after work without them freaking out. Nightmare scenario.
I think a deeper, core issue is being ignored. Why did he feel the need to lie to your partner about what he was doing? Why was he unable or unwilling to tell her that he's just having a beer? Is the issue that she would unfairly demand he not do this? Or is there some legitimate reason she might object? Either of these is indicative of a need to communicate about an issue.
In a healthy relationship, you should not only feel free to do what you want, you should also feel comfortable communicating these things with your partner. If you want to do something that would make your partner flip out, either there's something wrong with your desire or your partner's reaction and you need to talk about it.
Everything you said makes sense, but at the same time you can acknowledge that you need to communicate better without having the conversation right then and there. Both times the dude "transgressed" he was coming home from work. Probably tired, maybe had a bad day, I can see why he didn't want to negotiate beer or McDonalds with his wife right then and there.
Especially understandable is the beer. She admits that they had been having difficulties at home and maybe just needed some time alone to think. She knew where he was and texted him anyway.
This is everyone in the suburbs. My relatives send their kids to a summer camp where the main draw is a daily proof of life and frequent check ins and having an app to monitor the kids. Look, I'm all for safety (no really I am, more on this later), but it really seems to be more about the social media aspect of it, and removing any chance for kids to disconnect from parents socially even temporarily.
I never know how to feel about it when it comes to kids because although that sounds okay in some ways with best case scenario being little benefit and worst case scenario being your kid is dead or abused like wtf you can’t trust anyone with your kids really. Like a camp where they specifically don’t want/ let kids use their phones or computers or whatever? Sorry that sounds like camp rape to me idk
It's important to allow kids a space where they can escape existing in constant relation to their parents and under observation by them and just fuckin explore and experiment with socializing and identity. Summer camps are really good for this.
Firstly, I'm sending any kids I may suddenly be forced to take care of to cadets so they know not to join the military. This way summer camp will be spent waist deep in mud trying not to break a vietnam era radio while some rich bitch in a $2000 ghillie suit shoots paintballs randomly at your position.
Secondly my approach to knowing where they are is "Try not to fuck yourself up, remember, if you die I know molecular biology, so I can and will bring you back and yell at you until you die again from the scolding. Do not call me."
my partner and i have done this for years. Not to this unhealthy degree of course but we share location. I started doing it because they would ask for eta as i was driving home from work. It was a bit of an unpredictable commute due to long running major construction and i didnt want to text and drive so i turned my location sharing on.
On the flip side I mainly use it to find them in crowds when they wander off to go look at stuff a vendor is selling or whatever. its not super accurate but gets me close enough.
Same here. Our lives are so intertwined that keeping track of each other is just a basic courtesy, not some malicious form of control. I understand why some people may not want their life to be intertwined with another person’s that way. It’s just a matter of preference and what is negotiated with your partner(s). I’ve also gone through some rough patches where separation was very much on the table and this practice still didn’t cause any problems.
This feels pretty understandable. She admits the parts that were unhealthy and explains why. The marriage ended, so obviously they both knew it wasn’t a good relationship for them. The trust wasn’t broken because of the location sharing. It provided an unhealthy outlet. That’s the point of the article.
The question is, how does she incorporate this experience into future decision making? GPS isn't going away, so she'll have to learn to trust not knowing some things or this will hang over relationships to come.
I guess some people hear the lyrics to Every Breath You Take by The Police and think, "How ❤️❤️❤️ romantic!"
I am more of a "don't eff/date/marry your stalker" kind of person.
really excited for the next step of loving surveillance technology, like apps that slave all the nearby microphones and let your "loved ones" record and playback every word from every conversation you have throughout the day and watch you on CCTV. so you can be safe from all the extremely high crime rates and terrorism.
and they can feel safe knowing that you will never leave them without them being 3 steps ahead of you.
My partner used to have us do that Life 360 location tracking stuff and I hated it. Just felt fucking wrong. I don't need to be watched and held accountable for every second of everything I do and I have zero desire to spy on my partner. This thing of wanting to know where everyone is at all times is so fucking weird to me.
Idk it was normal for her I think. She and her parents share their locations with each other and her and some of her bffs also share their locations together so also having me in the mix was just the next logical step I guess. My family doesn't do any of that shit so for me it was like damn this is uncomfortable
Half of what makes a relationship work are the tiny lies we tell to one another.
Imagine not being able to tell someone you are totally already on the train, definitely didn't spend 3 hours curling your hair and then had to take a taxi you couldn't afford so you could show up looking impossibly good.
Honestly this shit pisses me off and I've gotten into arguments with loved ones, friends, and coworkers about this. Location Services in general for my phone is typically off for everything & only turned on for Waze and like the weather app I use.
My mother has always guilt-tripped me into sharing my location with her for no reason other than satisfying her unfounded paranoia. Back when the location sharing features first came out on iOS (Find My Friends or whatever it was called), she used to just randomly look at my location whenever and since I was like 19/20 & in college it used to bother me so much. Nothing like getting a text from your mother at 2am (gotta love the familial insomnia) wondering why your location is showing up in a completely different city & college campus than the one I was attending. This got invasive to a point where I wound up just turning off location services entirely - which iOS loves to inform the other person of - and we'd have frequent back & forths where she'd text me something like "I can't see your location please turn it back on!!" and I'd read it, not reply & wind up arguing with her the next time I visited home until she managed to guilt me into turning it back on and the cycle would continue anew. This still happens basically to this day, over ten years later, randomly I'll get a text from her when she notices she can't see my location and I'll begrudgingly turn it back on for a few days before disabling it again. I've lost count of the number of times I've told her that she knows my exact address, where I work, and my typical schedule so it isn't like she doesn't know where I am at any given time M-F.
Similarly, but also somehow far worse, I have multiple friends who have gotten upset (and one that remains upset to this day) with me because I refuse to share my location with them. For example - I have a friend who deals weed and I tend to pick up from him out of convenience. He is the kind of shit dealer who will be like "text me at 7pm and you can swing by" and when you text him, it'll go unread and unanswered until 8:45pm & then when you go to pick up, he'll just tell you he put it out in his mailbox. Then the next time you pick up and you don't really want to hang out & ask him to put it outside, he'll get upset because he misses you. Not the worst behavior but still. Anyways, he has been mad at me for like 3 years at this point because one day when I'd hit him up, he was out biking on a trail so he shared his location with me and was like "just hit me up when I'm home!!" I didn't even look at it and instead, like a normal human being, just waited a few hours before hitting him up again. Didn't think anything of it until the next time I hang out with him at the bar, he's like "share your location with me!!". Explain to him that I don't like the idea of having my exact location visible at all times to anyone, not even my mother. Argument has continued since. Anytime I've had to meet up with him and text him something like "I'll be there in ~40 minutes", immediately asks for my location and gets upset when I say no.
I quite literally yearn for the days where, if you didn't leave a written note or drawn map with someone or somewhere, your exact location at any given time was basically unknown to everyone except those who you made it known to.