"I miss your hugs, your kisses, the way you held me… I still miss you." Seema (name changed) read and re-read the email open on the monitor before her.

The words had been written to her boyfriend of a year-and-a-half, Rajiv (name changed). Since the day the two of them started dating, Seema had been looking for proof, signs that Rajiv might be cheating on her. Now she believed, she finally had it.

Short of hiring a private detective, Seema has done everything possible to keep an eye on Rajiv. She constantly tracks his Facebook ‘wall’ and Orkut ‘scrapbook’: For the uninitiated in social networking etiquette, the wall and scrapbook are your personal message boards that unless specified, can generally be viewed by the public. If Rajiv added a new ‘friend’, Seema would check out the profile to see who it was; if it were a girl, Seema would spend sleepless nights wondering if Rajiv was having an affair.

When she could not find anything amiss on Facebook/ Orkut, Seema would take whatever possible chance to snoop on Rajiv’s mobile phone messages. Each time he left his phone unattended, Seema would quickly go through his message inbox, sent messages, drafts, call logs and recorded pictures to see who had called him, who he was text-ing and if there was anything suspicious in his mobile.

With a very bad relationship behind her – she had been dating a man who had cheated on her repeatedly – Seema was convinced that all men were cheats and that either Rajiv too was cheating on her or would soon do so… The more she did not find any proof, the more Seema was convinced that Rajiv was very good at hiding things from her.

Her hunt for proof intensified till one day she managed to hack into his email account and found the email mentioned above. Seema’s world crashed. She did not give Rajiv any chance to explain himself and despite his pleas that he had nothing to do with his ex-girlfriend sending him that message, Seema walked out on Rajiv.

Photograph: Stock.XCHNG