Challenging the customs and traditions of our society and breaking taboos, a group of women decided to use Facebook as a tool to test the loyalty and honesty of their lovers and find out about their previous relationships. More than eight groups were created under the same name, “I Know Him”, on which women started posting their lovers’ photos, asking other group members if they knew anything about their past. The group attracted the attention of thousands of followers who participated either by sharing photos, commenting, liking the posts, or just reading them.
In return, a group of men decided to take revenge by creating similar Facebook groups in which they post photos of their current and ex-girlfriends and open controversial arguments about them. Although such groups have raised waves of criticism and sentiment as people accuse them of spreading scandalous rumours, more groups have been created over the past few days.
“These groups are a serious indicator on how love materialises in our societies nowadays,” said ND, a 24-year-old woman. In her opinion, we have lost the healthy basis on which any relationship must be built, such as trust, honesty, and acceptance of a person’s merits and shortcomings.
“Such groups show how most relationships nowadays are distorted and fake and how people are inventing new methods to feel more comfortable about their partners. Such methods aren’t even considered healthy criteria for evaluating relationships in the long term. The girl or the boy who needs a Facebook group to make sure that their partners are not cheating on them are building a fragile structure that could collapse at any time,” she added.
She believes that people who joined these groups are either obsessed with the idea of getting married regardless of their trust or understanding of the person they are getting married to or they are just negative followers who keep reading people’s posts because of curiosity which is the same idea as the paparazzi journalism that spreads scandals and invades people’s privacy.
Similarly, in one of the comments on the group “I Know Him Alexandria”, a woman argued that such groups could be a way for hacking women’s’ accounts and stealing their photos and sharing them on men’s private groups to defame or blackmail them later on. “That was our fault from the very beginning.”
Many rumours have been raised about some murder cases in different governorates where brothers found out about the secret lovers of their sisters from these groups. Although no reliable reports have been released about this yet, this could be another scary indicator about the danger we are facing.
“We are living in a society where the girl needs to hide her personal life from her family because of the lack of understanding,” another girl commented.
In spite of the buzz such groups created on Facebook, it may be a good way to urge people to rethink and re-evaluate their fragile relationships. “Unfortunately, love has been turned into a spectacle on social media. People intend to let others know about the places they sit at, the gifts they receive, and they way they are enjoying their time with their partners,” ND concluded.
