Distracted Boyfriend

Look, we've all been there.

On November 1, 2015, Spanish photographer Antonio Guillem uploaded a stock photo to iStock with the clinical description: "Disloyal man walking with his girlfriend and looking amazed at another seductive girl." Little did he know he had created the defining meme template of the late 2010s.

The image featured three models—later identified as Laura, Mario, and an unnamed third woman—walking down a street in Girona, Spain. Mario's head is turned, mouth slightly agape, ogling the other woman while Laura looks on in disgust. It was a perfect encapsulation of desire, temptation, and the betrayal that comes from wandering eyes.

The meme exploded in 2017, with the three figures becoming universal stand-ins for any scenario involving misplaced priorities. "Me" looking at "procrastination" while "my responsibilities" glare. Politicians eyeing corruption while democracy suffers. The format was infinitely adaptable—anything you wanted more than what you had could be the other woman.

At the 2018 Shorty Awards, Distracted Boyfriend was named Meme of the Year, cementing its place in the canon. Related images from the same photo shoot surfaced, revealing an entire soap opera of relationship drama frozen in stock photography.

But all affairs must end. By 2019, the format had been so thoroughly colonized by brands, politicians, and your aunt's Facebook posts that using it unironically became impossible. The template lived too well and died of natural causes: overexposure.

Mario went back to Laura. The other woman faded into memory. The internet moved on.

But sometimes, late at night, we still catch ourselves looking.