Am I sleep Ok-Cupiding?

August 11, 2012 6:25 AM

My ex is showing up on my recently visited list on Ok Cupid without me having visited his page. What could be going on? I just changed my password but I'm 99% sure no one knew it before and I wasn't signed in anywhere else. I browse anonymously and I've 'hidden' him so he shouldn't know of this profile's existence (created post breakup). Wtf? Does anyone know the algorithms here well enough to tell me what the hell could be up?

Ok, second time now that I've signed in and my ex was in my 'recently visited' list when I HAVE NO VISITED HIS PAGE. I'm totally disturbed. What is going on?

1. I have not been drinking. 2. He shows up as the most recently visited. 3. I have checked his profile from this account in the past.

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Any possibility that your ex has your OKCupid password and is logging in to your account to see who you talk to and then accidentally visiting his own account while he does it?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:40 AM on August 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

How far back does "recently" go? How many other pages have you visited? If it's not too many, it could just be that the process involves churning through whoever you've ever visited.
posted by xingcat at 6:40 AM on August 11, 2012

Stupid suggestion, but are you paying for OKC and somehow confusing the recently visited with the visitors of your profile? If you are paying for it, you can browse anonymously and still see who looks at your page. Have you not looked at others' profiles in the meantime? I would imagine if you are doing any other browsing that he might stay in your recently visited section?

Other than that, block him and change your password to stronger one?
posted by two lights above the sea at 6:55 AM on August 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is the URL in question also in your web browser history?
posted by dgeiser13 at 7:06 AM on August 11, 2012 [7 favorites]

If other people you've looked at have hidden their profiles or resigned, he would likely rise to the top of the list. Maybe that?
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 8:56 AM on August 11, 2012

Is HIS profile the same? If he also changed his profile, and you "hid" his old one but not his new one, you will still show up in his searches. Double check your blocked/hidden list.
posted by slow graffiti at 9:00 AM on August 11, 2012

I'm not sure how to do this, but check for a key logger app on your computer or other devices? Maybe someone is getting your password that way??
posted by jbenben at 9:39 AM on August 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Mod note: From the OP:

1. usually the recently visited is accurate for the exact profiles I most recently visited, so it's not churning out a profile I visited weeks ago. Embarrassingly, I browse so much for fun that there is no way hundreds of people have resigned and raised him to the top of the list, given the last time this happened and I looked at his profile was Aug. 4.

2. His profile is the same and there is really no way short of really psychotic hacking that he would know about this account, and I'm also not a paid user.

3. Maybe most importantly in like with dgeiser13: I'm on chrome and it shows me the most recent time I visited today when I go to history, then says I visited 4 times - HOW CAN I SEE WHEN THESE 4 TIMES TOOK PLACE? I swear I'm starting to wonder if I did this at 3 a.m. and lost knowledge of it, and it's seriously worrying me.

posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 11:22 AM on August 11, 2012

You are not mixing up the list of people you visited with the list of people who visited you?

You are certain that you did not accidentally visit his profile, say by searching his name by auto-typing by force of habit?

Here is a forum page discussing this issue. It is suggested that simply mousing over a profile pic will programmatically open the profile and register a visit.
posted by tel3path at 2:03 PM on August 11, 2012

Do you use a bookmark for okc? Maybe you saved his profile url as your bookmark. It might even redirect to the login page when you use the bookmark still save it to the recent list.
posted by bhnyc at 5:23 PM on August 11, 2012

Log out. Open up a different browser, clear all the caches/cookies/passwords/history, etc... then log in in the different bowser and see if the same thing happens.


Or you could open the site in incognito mode where it shouldn't have previous visits or cookies saved.
posted by eatcake at 6:08 PM on August 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

Change all your passwords, for good measure.
Block Him on OKC.
Move on.
posted by JimmyJames at 3:15 PM on August 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is totally not a computer issue it's a human beings issue. Here's the order of events:

1. Anonymous and Ex break up.

2. Anonymous creates a new OkCupid profile and uses the Hide feature to stop it appearing in Ex's search results, even if Ex is specifically searching for something that would normally bring up Anonymous's profile. Tall vegans living in Anchorage, for example.

3. Ex's buddy Jeff is searching OKcupid one day for tall vegans living in Anchorage and sees Anonymous's profile.

4. Jeff texts Ex saying "Dude, I think I just found Anonymous on OKCupid! Check out http://www.okcupid.com/profile/HugeSlabOfFrozenTofu"

5. Ex visits Anonymous's profile.

6. Anonymous is weirded out by seeing them on the visitor list and posts to Metafilter.


Block him if you don't want him to message you, but there's basically nothing you can do about him finding your profile, short of starting over with a profile so vague or misleading that Ex's friends won't be able to tell it's yours (which sort of defeats the point on a dating site!)

At least the name showing on your visitor list was your Ex's standard username. That means he was probably just looking out of curiosity after somebody brought it to his attention. (A real creeper would have set up a second account for stalking purposes or visited in Anon mode.)
posted by the latin mouse at 7:06 AM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]