

All My Exes Live in Texts - yarianluis
http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/07/texting-exes-social-media-generation.html

======
chatmasta
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.

~~~
eshvk
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.

~~~
girvo
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.

------
girvo
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.

~~~
papercruncher
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

~~~
eshvk
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.

------
billforsternz
Damn, was hoping this was an article about how to encode Windows executables
into text.

~~~
iuguy
Ask and ye shall receive (in powershell form):

    
    
        $fName = "last.exe"
    
        $fContent = get-content $fName
    
        $fContentBytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($fContent)
    
        $fContentEncoded = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($fContentBytes)
    
        $fContentEncoded set-content ($fName + ".text")
    

Now you can at least say that all your .exes live in base64-encoded .texts.

~~~
ygra
I guess that should rather be

    
    
        Get-PSDrive -PSProvider Filesystem |
          Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Path { $_.Root } -Filter *.exe |
          ForEach-Object {
            $bytes = Get-Content $_ -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0
            $text = [Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)
            $text | Set-Content ($_.FullName + '.text')
          }
    

Reading the files as UTF-8 and converting them back into a byte array isn't
such a great idea, I think ;-)

------
jamesaguilar
There's a reason for the Reddit truism:

"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.

------
rlu
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.

~~~
davidxc
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.

------
hkmurakami
top image is a bit NSFW even though it's blurred, just FYI.

~~~
borplk
Yes I'd appreciate a warning "[NSFW-ish image]" in the title

------
pixie_
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.

