Ikasten (HABE)
Facing Up to Your Break Up on Facebook
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Break ups are a b*tch.
From reclaiming your box of miscellaneous items from an ex’s dorm room to having to do laundry alone on a Sunday night – it can be depressing. Add Facebook into the mix and it can be downright humiliating.
Unlike deleting a phone number in your cell phone, Facebook deletes and defriends are permanent. Plus you have an added audience of 500+ “friends” watching your newsfeed so word of your break up will travel faster than an STD moving from Pauly D to Angelina to the Situation.
Today a friend of mine filled me in on her recent break up and asked me to lend some “techs”-pertise from my own dating disasters:
1. Now that you are single, wait to mingle. Okay well wait at least 48 hours. Throwing single up too quickly can make you look desperate. If you need to act immediately the most dignified approach is to hide your status and then change it to single in a few days.
2. Bury your past. You cannot untag yourself out of your own life, but if you were in a relationship for more than 6 months in your late twenties and early thirties you likely have photo albums with a minimum of: one vacation together, a birthday party at a dive bar in the east village and a destination wedding where you were forced to wear leis but could not wear shoes during the ceremony. Instead of deleting these albums take new photos that showcase your new single life. Make sure your new albums include fun titles like “Hollahween!” but nothing too obvious like “All the Single Ladies.
3. Don’t be a status seeker. Quoting Tori Amos or Death Cab for Cutie lyrics on your status updates is depressing. Step away from lyrics.com and take a digital vacation from Facebook. This way you will send the message that you have better things to do then obsess over Facebook (even if it is not true).
A wise person once said that for every little knot you untie, a bigger one is formed.
Well, right now my life hit the mother of all knots. I thought I had everything under control and all my knotted messes were figured out. Apparently that isn’t the case.
We get to a place where everything seems to fit perfectly, but you only need one wrong-sized piece to send you crumbling. And that is just what happened.
Okay, so I’m bad at dealing with things – the absolute worst in fact, I tuck them away in a nice little box marked “Do Not Open or Death!” Without going into details, it was opened (on accident) and I freaked out and completely shut down. (For the record this is a metaphorical box.) I was on a date with a guy I have been seeing, and basically I was done after that. It wasn’t his fault – just bad timing.
Every event in our lives affects us, regardless of whether we want it to or not. If you think about a piece of string as your life, each time there is a horrible event a knot is formed. Now, sometimes you’re able to untie all the knots with no problem. But most of the time, you can only get to the surface knots, making everything else appear as if it’s fine. Well since I only worked on the surface knots, when the biggest snarly knot was being picked at, I fell apart.
And it’s okay to put a hold on untangling the bad stuff. But if you don’t deal with it then sooner or later it will rear it’s ugly little head. Please promise me crushes, you will start to work through your knots.
Step 1: Recognize it happened. When bad things happen, it’s easier to just pretend like they didn’t. “It was all in my imagination,” you say, “never happened.” Except it did happen, it’s real, and it will always be with you. You need to admit that or else no one will be able to help you.
Step 2: Get help. I, for one, am not a fan of professional help but you also have friends, significant others, parents and cousins. Ask for their help or maybe just their ears. Talking it out to someone you trust can be just as helpful as a stranger.
Step 3: Accept that it happened. You can’t change what happened, as much as you would like to…you just can’t. Until we figure out a way to time travel you are stuck with it. But you can make sure it doesn’t change you. Just because someone hurt you, or something tragic occurred, doesn’t mean you need to change your happy self. Don’t let anyone get the best of you! You need to show them that no matter what happens you are strong and they will never win.