Facebook: Making Breakups More Painful

Today I was talking to K, a close friend, about how Facebook makes breakups even more devastating than they already are. There's nothing worse than already being heartbroken than to have 65 of your acquaintances bombard you with emails, texts, gchat messages and calls asking what happened. They're looking for answers about what went wrong when... OH YEAH, you're wondering the same thing. Read below for a truly passionate, heartfelt analysis of how Facebook really complicates an ended relationship even further.

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R has kindly allowed me to hijack her blog for a post about breaking up in the age of Facebook. Children of the early 80s such as myself (I’m actually 3 years older than Mr. Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg) are in the unique position of having experienced serious breakups in both the pre- and post- Facebook universe. Having just experienced an especially soul-crushing breakup, I’m here to explain why Facebook makes the entire experience a thousand times worse.

First, a brief word of background. We fell in love. We moved in together. We got engaged. We set a date, I bought a wedding dress. He ended it and threw me out. I moved back in with my parents. That about sums it up.

Background out of the way, let me launch into why Facebook makes this situation even more unbearable.

1) The Shame Quotient

In a pre-Facebook world, I grant you that a lot of people would have known that I was engaged. I would have told many of my friends about my wedding dress, as well as other details of my wedding and generally how happy and in love I was. But would 500 of my closest acquaintances, frenemies and ex-boyfriends have been privy to that information? Most definitely not. Part of me thanks God that the ex decided to drop this bomb before the Save the Dates went out, but really, would recalling those be any more shameful than changing my Facebook relationship status? Changing one’s relationship status is akin to saying to everyone you’ve ever met in your life, “Remember how I used to be really happy? Remember how I posted over and over that I was going to be with this person forever? Well I was really really wrong and stupid, ok?”

I will say that I have appreciated the outpouring of support from many members of my Facebook community in this difficult time in my life. But I can’t help but think of every frenemy and ex that I never bothered to de-Friend who must be experiencing no small amount of schadenfreude every time I post a comment expressing my sadness and pain. I could start de-Friending people, but they aren’t really the people that have wronged me, and I don’t actually know what they are thinking. So instead I just live with the shame of thinking about what they might be thinking every time I feel the urge to post.

2) The Ex Factor

Even if you do decide to start culling people to limit your shame, that brings you head to head with the second big issue of the Facebook age: de-Friending the ex. In the old days, once you’d moved out, paid the last utility bill, and had him mail all the stuff you forgot to pack, you had to make an active effort to keep him in your life. That’s not to say that plenty of drunken “why don’t you love me?!?!?” phone calls didn’t occur. But those calls did not give you the all-access pass into What He’s Doing Now You’re Gone that Facebook provides without any effort on your part. Especially when your ex, like mine, is an active user of not only Facebook, but also FourSquare. There’s nothing quite like signing into Facebook in your pajamas at 6:30pm to find out that your ex is currently enjoying a night out at one of the fanciest restaurants in your former hometown. Facebook and FourSquare allow you to bypass the pesky logistical and moral details of stalking someone and let you to launch straight into the crazy that results when you know more than you should about his life After. Before you know it you’re overwhelmed by questions of “how can he be over it so fast? Has he found someone else? DID I MEAN NOTHING?!?!?!”

So you decide that you don’t want to be Crazy Stalker Lady and that you should un-friend him. But now removing him entirely from your life, Facebook-style, has become as active an effort as keeping him in your life was pre-Facebook. Un-Friending forces you to confront all the tiny little breakup voices still lurking in your head. “But what if he posts that he really misses you right after you block him?” one voice might whisper. “Isn’t it better to know what he’s doing than to wonder?” another voice (posing as the voice of reason) might argue. To de-Friend requires a Herculean effort to shut out all the little voices, a task that is often beyond the recently dumped.

And if you have been together a long time (living together three years and friends before that for two more, for example), de-Friending him is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the hundreds of mutual friends that you share? Some are easily categorized as His, but most you don’t want to lose just because he dumped you. But as long as you are friends with them, there is a chance he will continue to infiltrate your Facebook world. And what about photos? In the old days, it was a simple matter of either shoving the photos in a box under your bed or making a little funeral pyre for them (depending on your flare for the dramatic). But now your photos represent Who You Are to the Facebook world. Deleting all the ones of you and him together, or you participating in things you did together, means essentially deleting the last 5 years of your life. You don’t want the world to think you just didn’t exist for most of your twenties, even if, looking back, you wish you had existed a little bit more without him. And if you aren’t going to delete the photos and you aren’t going to un-Friend mutual friends, unfriending him becomes essentially an exercise in futility.

I realize this post is going to out me as a crazy lady to many people, including many people who have no idea who I am. I think bad breakups make all of us a little crazy. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to keep Facebook from making the little bit of crazy a little bit worse.

WARNING: Parental Controls

My fifth grade teacher told my class she was glad she didn’t have kids. Being at the beach and having a toddler pulling on her bathing suit screaming that he needed to go to the bathroom repulsed her. At the time I was horrified that she’d say that to a group of ten year old students and I sort of still am. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. She’s the same lady who told girls to not let the boys into their bodies. And boys, you shouldn’t try to get into girls’ bodies, either.

Backing up to what she first said about the beach, we all know that there’s a good chance that many parents would say they concur. In reality, though, the American parent’s overattentive and overbearing personality on the whole overshadows that. Welcome to the twenty-first century, where moms and dads can’t help but consider each and every of their child’s (potential) needs, where no aspect of a kid’s life goes without being micromanaged.

Now, I’m no where near the point in life where I’m going to have a child, knock on wood. I do, however, find it interesting that I’m not only noticing things applicable to this topic, but also seriously considering and analyzing it. If nothing more, I think that even at this age I’m starting to recognize which ways I think I should and shouldn’t parent a kid when I have one-- while at the same time recognizing how nutty so many parents really are.

Let’s take yesterday, for example. I was in Zabar’s, an amazing Upper West Side (NYC) grocery store. Now, I’m sure I was already irked because there was a line I had to push through for proscuitto samples. I had already waited in line to score a strip of fresh rye bread! (I like this store for the samples, in case you wouldn’t already tell.) Anyway, I found myself becoming even more annoyed as I overheard a pushy mother speaking to her child, and that for sure didn’t make having to wait in line any easier.

“We’re speaking Italian now, not English!” she scolded the young boy in Italian.

The kid, about four years old, wiggled in his stroller and started screaming to voice his opinion. He hates speaking Italian. He wanted to speak English.

Call me crazy, but I call this contrived. Lady, maybe you speak Italian, but it’s pretty clear that it isn’t your first language. Also obvious? You want your kid to be talented and advanced. Not brilliant, though, because that he already is. Naturally. He’s your son.

I understand the whole wanting your kid to learn a foreign language concept. I’m actually a huge proponent, especially since I’m eternally grateful that I started learning Spanish at age eleven. But really, why has our society gotten to the point that it’s OK to force your child to speak another language other than English-- in New York-- just to have a more successful year in kindergarten!?

This situation represents just one tiny example of the whole “helicopter parent” type, or those who hover over their children and their actions at all times. As I was sitting and thinking about this incident on the train this morning, I happened to come across a New York Times article that references the same idea, Students, Welcome to College. Parents, Go Home by Trip Gabriel. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/education/23college.html). Instead of calling them “helicopter parents” as so many people have in recent years, the author calls them “velcro parents,” as if they’re glued to their kids. Also, they’re not talking about four year olds. In fact, they’re talking about kids 4.5 times their age: kids going to college.

You think that this obsessive behavior, actions that demonstrate that parents will do or say anything to make their kids the best and the happiest, would have simmered down by college. Apparently not. Such overbearing behavior lasts up until (and even through) the college years. The issue that this article brings up has to do with parents relinquishing control over their kids and how difficult they find it. I think it’s safe to assume that many of the parents that we’re talking about here are the same that insist their kids speak foreign languages while toting their sippy cups in public.

These parents don’t know where to draw the line then and they certainly don’t when they’re going to college. They don’t even know when it’s appropriate to leave and let them well... go to college. The article tells of parents who won’t leave their kid’s dorm room to let them settle down and even parents who insist on attending their kid’s first college class. Wow, that would have been an amazing way to pick up boys. Have mommy walk me to class. I'd be the most popular kid on my hall!

My point though in explaining all this is that I worry when this type of parenting will ever end. Will these kids ever not have to answer eight texts and two calls a day from their parents? Will parents ever stop controlling ever single detail of their kids’ life, or will it keep getting worse and worse and never turn back to the way it was? It sickens me to think of the (possible) extremes parents will go to in the future. I mean, if people are already controlling their children’s speech in public, what more can parents control? Who their kid flirts with, when and what pickup lines they use? People need to back off and calm down or else things are just going to get downright sicker. Your kids really will be OK if they don't speak four languages by age seven. I promise.

Freaks (or Freakshows?) on the Subway

Consider this my official prediction: one day I'm going to be in trouble, and I mean big trouble, for too closely observing people in public. I'm not talking about a quick glance at that woman who's so thin her bones protrude, or sneaking a peek at that guy who's spitting chewing tobacco into an empty Pepsi bottle. (Really though, man, it's 2010, not 1910!)

No, I'm talking about staring. Really staring, gazing intently at someone's odd behavior or dress, sniffing their unusual scent (gross, right?) and eavesdropping on their cellphone conversations. I'd hesitate to say that I'm nosey-- even though I am-- but rather curious. Exceptionally curious. Like "Curious George was my role model growing up" curious.

Considering this is one of my most prominent personality traits, it makes my subway commute to and from work interesting and, yes, I'll say it, the best part of my day. Not only do I get to sit back and relax while someone ELSE drives me around, I get to encounter people from all walks of life that I otherwise don't bump into. What a better place than a major city for me to fulfill my thirst for observation?

Today in particular proved especially interesting on the subway. Actually, this week has been interesting in regards to transportation all around for me. Let me explain.

I hopped on the train at my normal stop, ready to do my daily reading on my Blackberry. After I finished a quick phone conversation, a flash of color in my peripheral vision caught my attention. Apparently I had sat next to a woman who sported a wild Hawaiian print silk shirt, dandruff covered black pants and a stretchy visor, the tacky kind only a grandmother wears. Sure, she was quite a piece of eye candy to a girl like me who's interested in the oddities of life, but really she didn't appear to be anything special.

It wasn't until I realized that my iPod was dead and that I'd have to rely on other forms of amusement that I noticed that she was reading. Reading to herself and aloud. Now what, you might ask, was so interesting about her reading? Everyone reads on the train to work, you might think.

She was reading erotic literature. Yep, right there, right next to me, a girl sitting close enough to see what she was reading. As she muttered to herself about how Clyde groped Charles so tenderly that Charles... ok, enough... I won't go further, my stomach sunk and I feared that I'd get sick all over her.

Before I knew it, this woman had finished reading her story. She was already at another webpage where she was selecting criteria in an erotic literature search engine so she could amuse herself with another story. Apparently her fetish is man-on-man first person POV. I'll admit that's way more than I'd ever want to know about someone I'm simply watching from a (slight) distance.

Anyway, I'm realizing that the more I seek out these unique people in my travels, the more that I find. Yesterday while being attacked by miserable humidity, I stepped into a frigid cab in order to go on an errand for work.

"Welcome to my cab," the cabbie exclaimed.

"Thanks," I responded.

"I hope you like the music that I've selected for you," he continued.

"Yes, it's fine, thank you," I said, further proceeding with my destination's address.

"I want to tell you about something that not everyone knows," he began, as I half-tuned him out. "The most important thing in this world is money. Money. The second most important thing is school. And everything after school and even INCLUDING school costs money!"

I attempted to tune him out, but realize the impossibility of this task as he asked me questions of opinion following each of his statements.

"But did you know," he questioned, "that the President of the United States of America will help you out with all of this money? Did you know that if you pick up any phone, dial zero, say 'Operator, I want to be connected to the President of The United States of America,' she'll put you through to a White House operator, operator number nine, and you can tell this person that you want to petition for the jubilee status. Do you know what the jubilee status is?"

"Um, no, sir, I don't know what the Jubilee Status is."

"Well 18 million people in Massachusetts are ahead of you! They already petitioned! And they're having all of their bills and college loans and rent paid for by President Obama! You can look it up! We're all entitled to it under The Constitution. Look it up, article 3C-L3!"

I couldn't wait to jump out of his car. Really, I almost considered having him pull over and letting me out early, only so I could brave a walk in the heat to get rid of this crazy man. But I made it safely to my destination (surprisingly, he was an incredibly safe driver) and forgot about him for a couple minutes. That is, until I made it back to my desk and decided to look up the article number that he had stated.

Nothing. Of course nothing. There's no such thing as Jubilee Status.

But what if, I thought, there really is something called the Jubilee Status in our country, and maybe I had just written down the numbers incorrectly? So of course, being the gullible and curious person that I am, I googled "Jubilee Status." To my disbelief, I came across a blog, similar to my own, where someone else had chronicled their adventures with brown cab #9. Not only that, but tons of people afterward commented on the post, relaying similar tales of this crazy man who they unexpectantly encountered on trips to the airport or City Hall. See http://tellhimfred.com/2008/01/11/welcome-to-crazy-town-population-your-cab-driver/#comment-24167 for the post and a more accurate description than I could ever give. (It's funny, I almost promise.)


So yes, this cab driver was insane. As one woman described him, he's "batshit crazy." That very well might be the case. But, nonetheless, he made my ride an adventure unlike any other I've ever had in this city. And the woman from this morning? Same thing. As weird and sick of an experience as that was, it entertained me and provided me with a conversation started at the very least. I think I'm learning to appreciate the nutty people in life and realize that, just like the woman's shirt, they bring a little color and spice to our lives.


XOXO,
R.