Dogged by online deceit and ‘heterofatalism’ are today’s singletons right to just give up on romance?
Revelations of online deceit, including by singer Lily Allen, above left, have made daters more wary in their search for love. Graphics: Clare Meredith
Theresa Rowley was 12 hours from taking a flight to visit her boyfriend in Ireland from her home in America when the first Instagram message, from a woman she didn’t know, arrived. “I got what I refer to as a ‘Hey girly’ message on Instagram, from a girl who let me know that they had been talking up until the day before he came to visit me here in Texas,” Rowley tells me, in her first interview since she posted a viral reel on Instagram revealing her now ex partner’s infidelity.
“Very, very sexual conversations via Instagram. And she sent me a whole bunch of screenshots. She let me know I’d be in her prayers – which really was a twist of the knife for a former pastor’s girl like me,” Rowley laughs somewhat grimly. “It was awful, truly awful.”