A year ago, shortly after breaking up with her boyfriend of three years, Emma Lauren decided to jump back into the dating scene, starting with an OkCupid account. Her first date went disastrously: the dude showed up late, looked nothing like his profile picture, spent the entire time talking about 9/11 conspiracy theories, and berated her for smoking a cigarette before he tried to kiss her at the end of the night. She didn’t speak to him again, and later blocked his phone number after he became belligerent because she didn’t reply to his texts.

After this catastrophic return to the dating world, Lauren decided she wasn’t quite ready to start seeing new people, deleted her account and moved on. She said would have never thought of the date again—except the unhinged suitor showed up in the ‘People You May Know’ section of her Facebook a few weeks ago.

The feature displays people Facebook’s algorithm has decided you might know based on “mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors,” according to Facebook’s Help Center page. It can be a great way to reconnect with friends from college or people from your hometown you haven’t added yet. (mais…)