Once, love was all about getting romantic. Now, it's about getting back. The number of cases of possessive lovers hacking mail accounts and spamming their ex-partners have soared. "Creating fake profiles and indiscriminate sending of mails for harassment are complaints that we often encounter," admits a senior police officer in Bangalore, the country's IT capital which regularly sees such cases.
A recent survey, conducted by online security firm McAfee, which covered 967 respondents in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi and a few other cities, found that more than 26% of the 200-odd ex-lovers interviewed in Chennai admitted to have threatened their former partners of making public their intimate pictures and messages. What's more, all of them carried out the threats. In Mumbai, more than 34% of the respondents said they had faced these threats from their ex-partners, and that 77% had carried out the threats. In Delhi, the rate of those who had received such threats was 31%, with 71% carrying out the threats. In fact, the survey which was replicated in nine other countries, found that Indian respondents ranked the highest, in terms of having behaved in a way so as to disturb or damage the relationship of the ex-partner and their new partner.
Many attribute this retaliatory behavior to the way relationships are structured now in an increasingly online environment where every moment of your partner's life can be tracked. "Everything about dating has changed in the age of social networking," says Rushali Naik, a postgraduate student. "Gone are the days when one could admire someone from a distance and daydream about them. Now, we have so much access to the other person's life that it's frightening."
And once the relationship turns sour, it just takes a few clicks to turn life hell for the person you once loved. BN Gangadhar, professor of psychiatry, Nimhans, says that it's a dangerous trend. "An adverse post on Facebook can even send someone into depression."
A flip side of these heartbreaks and the resultant hatred is that a number of websites have sprouted to provide ex-lovers an outlet. A few like Neverlikeditanyway.com are e-commerce driven which allow you to sell gifts given by your ex in order to let go of the pain. Lucknow-based Richa who was recently dumped by her boyfriend is planning to sell a ruby ring gifted by him. "Whenever I see the ring, it just reminds me on how he cheated on me. It will be a catharsis getting rid of it."
(Reports by Arun Dev in Bangalore; M Ramya in Chennai and Priyangi Agarwal in Lucknow)
When loves turns into hate
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When loves turns into hate
