If your personal history includes memories of 36 events that make your "stomach churn," maybe you should investigate the cause for the events. You might trace all of them back to one origin. That's the root problem. So before you lament the impossibility of resolving your personal issues, try to fix them yourself. Don't excuse your behavior based on the presence of a controllably negative influence like Facebook. It doesn't make you do anything. Your decision of how to use it is entirely of your own volition. If you do not like how you handle that power, figure out why. Do not throw your arms up in the air and blame Facebook. Blame your own decisions and then address the cause. You're only avoiding the problem.
That is rather harsh and rather tangential. Sure, ultimately every personal relationship being destroyed has two parties at fault; one of whom is yourself. Fixing yourself doesn't mean that you magically become a mormon missionary like grin and become at ease with everything life. The 'stomach churn' is a very human thing.
I feel like your rant places the blame solely on the user herself and not on the usability problems associated in the Facebook era.
E.g. blocking an ex would be easy. Yet, it also means that you cannot see if the other person is going to an event or not. This is an issue for certain people who don't really want to hang out at a certain event if their ex is going to it. The other alternative is to keep seeing them appear in your facebook interaction someway or the other: your chat box shows them as one of the most frequently messaged people; suggested events may be because they are going to a certain event.
I disagree, I feel that taking responsibility for your past makes things easier to deal with and easier to move on. Four out of six long term serious girlfriends cheated on me. While I feel that reflects badly on those girls personality, I also take responsibility for my behaviour in the relationship, I was a typical Beta male who didn't hold up my end of keeping the relationship stable. Accepting that has lead to me being a stronger happier person, in an excellent stable and above all, well adjusted long term relationship with a girl I'm desperately in love with.
What I'm saying, is the OP is blaming Social Media for her own issues,in my opinion anyway.
OP is being polite. Obviously the point is that Maureen O'Connor's problems have very little to do with Facebook's usability and very much to do with Xing with 36 guys, where "X" rises to Maureen's internal threshold for considering them "exes". Who wants to be #37? Or #43, to put a ring on it?
That's the source of the "user's" current and future unhappiness. Not Facebook's usability problems.
I'm 22. I have 6 ex girlfriends, and a lot more girls that were not a proper relationship, but for the sake of argument here, we'll call them exes.
I deal with this problem simply. I delete them and remove them from my life. There have been no exceptions.
I've run into one or two of them around town, said hello, and went my own way.
It can be done, oddly enough. But then, I don't ascribe any meaning to deleting someone from Facebook. I have 100 people in my friends list, and I'd invite every one of them to a party.
That system breaks down if you start dating from within your social circle (friends of friends). I know you'll tell me it's a big no-no but you'd be surprised how much more common it becomes as you get older
Very true. It becomes harder especially if the breakup is messy. As a friend you are forced, like it or not, to choose sides. As a person in the relationship, you are in the awkward situation of knowing that some of your friends are going to side with the other person and so on.
I personally would prefer to be friends with exes. I don't understand why people find it so hard to go from dating to freidship. Of course it's awkward at first, just like your first date was awkward, but you push past it if its someone you'll enjoy in your life.
> I don't understand why people find it so hard to go from dating to freidship.
You must not have a large sample set to work on then. A friend of mine came out of a two year relationship where his ex slept with a close friend. Sure it is "awkward", sure they have a lot in common. However, why does he need to go through all the pain in order to be friends with her (or maintain a friendship with the other friend for that matter)? There are millions of people out there to be your friends, your lovers. Delete, walk away works just as easily.
I don't have the largest sample set to be candid. I should have specified that I am speaking specifically about relationships that end on good terms and both people make a sort of unspoken pledge to live their lives as if the other never existed. If the relationship ended in an ugly manner, all bets are off.
I'm going to digress a bit and talk about your friends specific example. First and foremost, if someone is sleeping with your girlfriend when they know you are dating, that person isn't a friend, let alone a close one.
In your example I would argue your friend clearly still cares about his ex if it hurts him to be around her. So maybe learning to forgive and having her back in his life as a friend wouldn't be the worst thing.
Obviously there are a million fish in the sea but there isn't a limit on friends. I personally had a bad breakup where I wrote the ex out of my life but I have now forgiven her and wish we could be friendly. But I certainly don't blame anyone for breaking off contact with an ex who cheated on them.
I understand your position, and felt that way when I was first dating. My first girlfriend slept with a friend of mine and I tried to be amicable about it. She then resented me for being the bigger person.
As someone else said, there are 7 billion people on earth. I'd rather make new friends than try to hold on to something or someone that has fucked me over.
> I would argue your friend clearly still cares about his ex if it hurts him to be around her. So maybe learning to forgive and having her back in his life as a friend wouldn't be the worst thing.
That is stretching the English lexicon when it comes to the word "care". Having positive emotions for someone is not the same as having negative emotions for them.
> "forgive and having her back in his life"
I dunno. I feel like a major boundary was violated. A friendship or anything really works on the basis of boundaries not being violated. Sure, sometimes mistakes do happen. However, to forgive requires the other person to be aware that a boundary was violated and be ready to take steps to fix it. I feel like our society is too accepting of the word "sorry" and too easy with using it. Sometimes "sorry" just doesn't cut it.
Well that is an extreme example. Most relationships don't end that way. I'm friends with all but one of my ex's and consider them good friends, I couldn't imagine deleting them from my life, that seems so immature.
"Hire a lawyer, hit the gym, delete from Facebook."
Far be it from me to say how someone else should deal with their exes, but if their presence on social media makes you uncomfortable, there's a quick and dirty solution just a click of a button away.
The comments on the site are a little brutal! I enjoyed the read, though I feel like at this moment in time I relate to it much more than I might otherwise.
I just graduated college this May and so the way I'm relating to the piece isn't so much with maintaining contact with exes, but maintaining contacts with college friends. There are certainly different 'levels' of friendship. Some I could see maintaining contact with frequently (but for how long??), others maybe just 3 or 4 times a year, and others still maybe just a few times every 5 years.
But even my closest friends - suppose I actually gave them a real phone call every month - how long does this keep going? This one comment on the OP site itself certainly hits the nail on the head...
"are you going to be dragging all these people along with you when you are 40? 50? 80? ... You can't take everyone with you."
I can see myself only speaking with my closest college friends maybe a couple times a year, 5 years from now. And that's kind of sad.
I can relate to this comment. I had some really close friends in high school (who I'm still close friends with), but after two years out of high school we've mostly lost touch. We talk to each other once every couple of months, and I see them maybe a few times over summer. It's definitely kind of sad.
I wish I could send this article back in time 20 years. All the prophecies of how the internet would change the social dynamic, and now we see how it has all played out.
