We Have To Break Up on FaceBook Too? (Unfriending Exes)
The other day my friend Liz reached out to me via IM with a problem. She had just broken up with her boyfriend Craig, who had taken the split pretty badly, and she wasn’t sure what to do about her FaceBook status.
(Has it really come to this?).
Liz felt that leaving her FB status at “in a relationship” would give Craig false hope, but immediately changing the status back to “single” or even “it’s complicated” would throw digital salt in his still-fresh wound.
“How long has it been,” I asked.
“About three days,” she replied.
“And how long were y’all together?”
“Just over a year and a half.”
“Okay, give it about a week before you change your status,” I suggested. “That sounds like a fair amount of time.”
Technology has really messed up the dating game, man. It’s hard enough breaking up with someone in the real world, but now you have to weigh the do’s and don’ts of breaking up digitally as well.
Sheesh!
The fact that FaceBook automatically streams the slightest change you make—including the all-important relationship status—to your entire contact list has always been my biggest gripe and love about the social networking site.
Truthfully, I only joined FaceBook for marketing and promotional purposes (if we happen to be “friends” on there that fact becomes apparent pretty early on). The instantaneous feed updates are a huge plus from a branding standpoint. However, when I started seeing folks over/react to changes in other people’s relationship status (those damn broken heart icons don’t help much) I knew my personal info (well, besides these intimate blog entries) was going to be limited and static. But I digress…
Liz’s scenario got me to thinking about how hard social networking sites are on a breakup. It’s one thing to split and not have to see the other person for a while, but sites like FaceBook provide instant and constant updates on any and every little thing your former boo is up to. It’s not even like you have to stalk their page to see what’s going on because depending on how often he or she updates their page it’ll just pop up on the side of your homepage as a “suggested” or highly “liked” item.
Seeing stuff like “Got a hot date tonight;” that 20 people “like” your ex’s latest photo album with some random person smoochin’ on them; or worse yet, that dreaded relationship status update that goes from single to “in a relationship” or “engaged” is killer. It’s a constant and very public reminder that your love affair is over.
On top of that, social networking sites make it too easy to cyber stalk. I’m sure even the most mature person has been at least tempted to click a link on their ex’s page once or thrice. I won’t even lie, I found myself checking out a former flame’s (or five’s) page a few times and it was self-inflicted torture. I kept reading things I didn’t want to read and saw stuff I didn’t need to see. I finally had to just do a full FaceBook detox and train myself to fight temptation.
There was of course another more drastic measure I could have taken. I could have just deleted her/them from my friends list and removed the option altogether, but that just seemed a bit too drastic.
Or would it?
We spoke last week about people deleting ex’s phone numbers and emails, so why not their social networking profiles as well? Chances are you’re not going to be much of a real friend to your ex post-breakup anyway, so why do you need to be digital homies? You can just see them when you see them (if at all) and save yourself the trouble of being bothered by their happy post-you life.
I actually discussed this with Liz and she thought it might crush her delusional ex even further. I can definitely see that, because I’ve always been taken aback when I find out that someone de-friended me. (Oh, you thought I wouldn’t notice, huh? SMH). It’s like, “WTF?! We ain’t cool no more? Shoot, well, let me know.”
I actually hit one friend in particular that I really respected and I thought the feelings were mutual to see why I was booted from her friends list or to get confirmation that it was just an unintentional mistake/glitch. Come to find out it was 100-percent intentional. Apparently my constant promotion status updates were a bit too much for her. However, she explained that our FB “friendship” had nothing to do with our real world friendship.
It still stung a bit, but I could live with that.
But what if this were an ex and I were the dumpee? I’m sure I would be thrown for an emotional loop if I was going to stalk check out her page only to find my access was denied. At the same time, though, it would be real wake up call as to where this person and I stood—digitally at least. Either they didn’t want to see my face pop up randomly in their FB feed or they didn’t want to appear in mine. Regardless, it would force me to come to terms with the fact that we not only broke up for real but digitally as well, and that’s just something I’d have to deal with at some point so I could just move on.
Do you think that you have to also digitally breakup with someone when the relationship is over? Or can you successfully maintain cyber ties with your ex? How long after a breakup do you think someone should wait to change his or her online relationship status? Should you take your ex’s feelings into account before making the change? Would you be hurt to see your ex change their status too soon? Have you ever stalked an ex’s page? Did you ever discover something major about your ex’s love life by stalking their page? How did you react? Would you ask your mate to de-friend their ex? What if you caught your BF/GF stalking their ex’s page?
Speak your piece…
“We Have To Break Up on FaceBook Too? (Unfriending Exes)”