Highest Five

For those of you who don’t remember me, which probably includes all of you, I’m the dude who nearly retreated to the safety of the witness relocation program because a girl I was dating cyberstalked the crap out of me.  You can read all about how a woman, armed with the left click button of a mouse invaded my space here.

I was young and naïve back then.  Back in April.

Well I’m still naïve, but I think you’ll be pleased to know, or at the very least indifferent, that I am no longer in the “zoo without a cage,” the “circus without a tent,” the “diarrhea without a diaper” world known most commonly as “dating.”  Yes my friends, I have somehow convinced a human girl to be in a monogamous relationship with me. By convinced I of course mean “tricked,” and by monogamous I mean “sexually exclusive to one another.”

In my last article I talked about how Facebook and the internet had changed the face of dating, completely eradicating blind dates while giving potential mating partners access to your life in photograph form.  Now that I’m in a fully functioning relationship, I’m discovering a whole new way of screwing things up and getting into trouble with the ladies.  I call it Facebook C***blocking.

The Double Dump

The last relationship I was in ended horribly.  I had to do the hardest thing in the world which is to tell another human being, and not to their email inbox but to their actual face, that I don’t love them anymore and that I want to see other people.  I compare the feeling to what it must be like to drown a puppy, or to throw one off a bridge in Lithuania.  This is a good litmus test to separate those of us with souls from those of us who are zombies.  But nothing prepared me for how tough it would be to end our relationship on Facebook.
Breaking up with a person is one thing, but telling the thousand-plus people between us about it was something else entirely!  I tried simply removing the “status” function completely, but sure enough, the broken heart symbol went out like a virtual Bat-signal, inviting the whole world to swoop onto my wall and inbox with a flood of “Why’s” and “So sorry’s.”
I hate when people say “I can’t believe you guys broke up!  You guys looked so happy in all those photos!”  Well no shit!  When someone takes your picture, what do you do?  Exactly.  You pull your loved one in close and you smile.  That picture only represents a split second in time.  It doesn’t capture the last 6 hours of arguing over why the toilet paper roll should be pull-able from the top and not the bottom.  Besides, it’s kinda hard to look pissed when someone says “cheese.”

But if there’s one thing I’ll give Facebook, you’re never alone during birthdays and breakups.  But changing my relationship status really felt like breaking up with someone twice, or if you will, drowning two puppies.  Like these little guys.

I just wish I had read this before doing anything, taken from an actual FB profile called “Did u know u can change ur relationship status without anyone knowing!?”

If you change your settings, you can make facebook not tell the world that u and ur lover have just ended that relationship of yours….

How u ask??

This is how!!

1) Click on “privacy” in the top right hand corner of any facebook page
2) click on “news feed and mini feed”
3) unclick the box next to “remove my relationship status”
4) click “save changes” at the bottom of the screen
5) break up with ur bf/gf in peace without the world finding out!
6) Change ur relationship status from… (read more)

A wise Jewish wedding singer once said “Information that would have been useful YESTERDAY!!”

Never Again

Since then I vowed to never, EVER post my relationship status on Facebook for the love of sweet Jesus.
Well apparently my vows mean nothing, a fact which should be of concern to the lovely girl whom I am now posted as being “in a relationship” with on Facebook.
Inasmuch as I wanted to keep my previous breakup private, I wanted the world to know that I had learned absolutely nothing.

The following are some basic rules for maintaining a danger-free Facebook profile while in a relationship. They will help the new person in your life feel like they are the only person in your life, and they will hopefully spare you from getting water boarded by jealous partners looking for answers.

Spring Clean Your Profile

Facebook can really screw you when starting a new relationship. More precisely, all the crap you and your pals have posted can screw you.  From the second you add your new love interest to your web of “friends,” expect him or her to sift through your profile with a fine-toothed stalker comb.

So before you click “Add”, make sure to delete all the wall posts discussing that time you were so wasted that you woke up in a recycling bin; remove all those photos with your tongue in people’s ears, in fact, you should remove all photos with any members of the opposite sex in them, as you will be forced to give a detailed history of each and every one them to your new love buddy.

No more Face-flirting

When the cute waitress you used to work with posts photos from her all-inclusive vacation in the Dominican Republic, it is no longer acceptable to tell her how awesome she looks in her floss-kini.

While comments like “Damn girl, you so fine you blow my mind” or “I wish I was your sunscreen lotion right now” might have been cute (they were never cute) when you were single, they are now grounds for getting dropped like that garbage remake of Night Rider.

You should also keep an eye on comments that other people post on your wall.  People have a bad habit of saying the quiet parts loud and the loud parts quiet.  When ex-flings post “hey hot stuff, I’m back in town for the weekend, do you still have those gravity boots and that trampoline?” on your wall instead of your inbox, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.  And almost no amount of “Baby that’s over now I swear!” can extinguish the jealousy fire your profile page created.

Along with the spring cleaning mentioned before, it would be a good idea to completely remove all exes, flings and booty calls from your profile while in a relationship, as they can only get you in trouble.  Besides, you can always add them back later if things don’t work out.

Easy on the Cheesy

Now that you’re in love, it’s going to be very tempting to spread cheese on your loved one’s wall.  Status updates like “Carla is floating on cloud 12” or “Bill is wondering how long before the heart-wound from cupid’s arrow becomes infected” are all fine and dandy…at first.  The only problem is that people who aren’t in love HATE hearing about people who are.  And while my general opinion on this matter is f*** them, you should try not to rub your love in their single, lonely, monstrous-amounts-of-alcohol-consuming faces.
Also, there is a Too Much Info meter when it comes to posting messages on each others’ walls.  Stuff like “miss you, xox” or “I had a lamb burger for lunch and thought of you”  are perfectly acceptable displays of PDFA (Public Displays of Facebook Affection).  But stuff like “I can’t properly sit on a chair today” or “Last night was awesome! If CSI showed up at my apt today with a black light, it would look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man exploded!” should be spared from the public consciousness and go straight to the inbox.

Face-time Vs Facebook Time

When people take Facebook way too seriously, the line between quality and quantity time becomes blurred.  I once lived with a girl, who would get upset with me if I didn’t notice the new photos she would post on her Facebook, or respond to the comments she posted on my wall. I LIVED WITH HER!  We would wake up together, spend entire evenings together, and fall asleep together, all the while actually speaking to each other.  This of course does not include the barrage of texts and MSN messages sent back and forth throughout the day.

How many lines of communication need to be open for couples to feel in touch with each other?  Does anyone remember what it was like to be “unavailable?”  I’m sometimes envious of our parent’s generation, who could go to work and be completely unreachable, except of course for emergencies, until they returned home.  Now we need to talk, text, and type to each other through half a dozen mediums to keep ‘em happy.

So please folks, while Facebook is indeed an amazing tool for sharing your life with close friends, keeping in touch with long distance friends, and getting back in touch with old friends, when it comes to relationships, the  time you spend together in person is what really counts.  Don’t get upset over pictures that were taken in the past, but feel free to stare in amazement at pictures taken in the future.  Life’s too short to get into arguments over the social network version of ourselves.  Virtual will never be real.