There was the breadcrumb dropped on Valentine’s Day, by the ex-girlfriend of my friend. The two women hadn’t spoken in months, after a prolonged breakup, and the ex was now seeing somebody new.

Yet there she was, on the day of Hallmark-themed romance, “liking” my friend’s Instagram photo … from three weeks ago. Which meant she had to have been scrolling through her feed.

There was the friend, a digital strategist who, every few days, would receive a “sup” from a recruiter, except that the recruiter would never set up a time to meet. Once, my friend returned to his desk to find a “failed Google hangout” notification from this person, to which the recruiter later messaged to apologize for the “butt dial.” My friend Victor Pineiro asked: “Was this a new recruiting tactic? Or just specific to this guy?”

I’ve had my own share of breadcrumbers: the editor at the publication where I was vying for a job who repeatedly viewed my LinkedIn page (which I could see) but never messaged me; the guy I went out with a couple of times who continued to text me every few weeks to “check in” months after we stopped seeing each other.