I Can’t Track You? We’ll Have to Break Up
When one partner in a relationship refuses to join a location-sharing app, it can spell trouble
by J. Jargon
There comes a time in every new romance to have The Talk.
No, not the one about when to meet the family or whether to move in together—the one about sharing your GPS coordinates.
Giving your partner a window into where you are at all times is a sign that things are getting serious. But when one partner refuses to be tracked on an app, it can raise red flags for some people—especially digital natives. (For plenty of others, including Gen Xers like me, not caring to know your partner’s every move is the ultimate sign of trust. And besides, who doesn’t want a little privacy?)
Mihika Nagpal broke up with a boyfriend three months ago because he didn’t want to share his location. They had been dating for four months. “It was a constant argument for a couple of weeks before I said, ‘This isn’t working,’” says 29-year-old Nagpal, who owns a business-consulting firm in Las Vegas.
For Nagpal and many others who have grown up sharing their location with parents and friends, being on others’ radar screens—or maps, rather—seems perfectly normal. Location-sharing has also become common among married couples who find it helpful for timing dinner to a spouse’s ETA. For newly minted couples, though, the decision to share locations isn’t always easy.
Twenty-one percent of respondents to a survey Life360 conducted last month of 1,000 app users who were dating or in a committed relationship said it’s a deal breaker if a potential partner isn’t willing to share their location. It’s even more critical for younger daters; of the approximately 150 Gen Z respondents, 30% said not sharing locations is a relationship killer. Almost 60% of participants said sharing locations signals the relationship is official.
Nagpal, who shares her location with up to 20 friends at a time on Life360, says it comes down to this: “I have nothing to hide.”
Heaven Hamlin feels the same way. Her baby’s father didn’t. “He felt it was too much in his business,” says Hamlin, a 23-year-old home health aide in Staten Island, N.Y.
She says disputes over location-sharing factored into their breakup a year ago, after five years together. “I feel it’s healthy to share your location with your partner,” Hamlin says. “If you don’t want me to know what you’re doing, why are we together?”
When couples have the location-sharing discussion, it’s important for both parties to explain why they want—or don’t want—to share their whereabouts, says Ebru Halper, a couples therapist in Westport, Conn.
“Is location-sharing about trust or about managing anxiety?” she says. “People don’t always step back and reflect on what’s motivating their stance.”
For Cassidy Lewis, a 20-year-old student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, location-sharing made her feel safe. She and her boyfriend readily agreed to share their whereabouts on Snapchat, and later Life360.
But Lewis began noticing that her boyfriend turned off his location at times. “I would bring it up because I thought it was a little sus,” she says.
She says there were problems in the relationship, including trust, and that she broke up with him a month ago. When she dates again in the future, she says location-sharing will be part of the deal. “I don’t think I’d immediately spring it on someone, but at the point where you’re exclusive, location-sharing would be nonnegotiable,” Lewis says.
Emily Henderson used to oppose location-sharing. When a previous boyfriend asked for her location data, she refused. But when she started dating her current girlfriend of 10 months, Emma Jonas, she shared her location with her because she was following the band Fall Out Boy across three states and wanted Jonas to know she was arriving at each venue safely.
Henderson figured she’d stop sharing her location on Life360 after the concerts, but didn’t. Somehow, this time, sharing her whereabouts just felt right, she says. She follows her girlfriend on the app, too. The only time they turn it off is when they’re shopping for gifts for each other. “We let each other know we’re not doing anything shady,” says Henderson, a 22-year-old in Kokomo, Ind., who works with people with disabilities.
People who begin dating after a divorce also find themselves navigating the new rules of digital-age romance.
Danielle Cook, a 39-year-old mom and writer in Jacksonville, Fla., who got divorced in 2021 after eight years of marriage, has been dating someone for almost six months. Before a recent drive to see her boyfriend 30 minutes away, Cook wondered if she should share her location so he would know when she was getting close. “I stopped myself because I didn’t want him to feel like he had to share his location with me,” she says.
The idea of sharing her location raised other questions, such as whether to turn it off upon arrival or keep sharing. She hasn’t broached the topic with him yet but figures it will come up at some point.
“It’s one of those things that’s just part of modern-day relationships,” Cook says.
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