"No matter how it ends, or how it evolves after it’s over, every relationship has an echo. Today, that echo lives on the Internet."
The "echo" that lives on after we get dumped (or do the dumping) is something we all respond to differently. Jordan Crook, the author of this article, talked to several of her friends who had recently experienced a serious break-up. She concluded that how we handle the digital "echo" depends a lot on the nature of the break-up and each person's needs for moving on. She explains that people must strike a balance between "push" and "pull." The "push" is the little reminders that are thrust upon us unexpectedly online, and these are the ones we try to avoid when we block or unfollow our exes. The "pull" is when we seek out knowledge on our exes' lives by "stalking" their minifeeds.
I found this piece to be thought-provoking and very relatable. Almost everyone has experienced the digital complications that arise after a break-up. My most serious relationship lasted all through high school and ended after we both went to different colleges. We'd spent countless times together for four years, so the memories, both online and off, were everywhere. The struggle for me was deciding what was more important: Staying friends and being able to see what was going on in his life through Facebook and Twitter, or blocking him and drastically improving my chances of moving on.
It was my first time dealing with the online aftermath of a breakup, so I vacillated several times before settling into a comfortable balance between the "push" and the "pull." One of the most important things I learned, which has greatly alleviated the pain during my future breakups, is to minimize the "pull." Actively seeking out information on your exes' happenings and whereabouts too soon after a break-up is almost always self-destructive. Crook aptly relates people's behavior on social media after break-ups to the idea of a "success theater." Both exes will be much more inclined to tweak and tailor their feeds to put the best and most fun aspects of themselves on display. After all, people want to give off the image that they're happier and better off after a break-up, even if the opposite couldn't be more true. The problem then becomes that whenever we "pull" for information, we see all the fun things our ex is doing without us, which makes it even harder to keep our chins up and focus on our own lives.
Crook also talks about the "break-up makeover," the common practice of cleaning up our profiles after we get dumped. I've personally observed that everyone does this differently, usually depending on the terms on which the relationship ended. After a nasty break-up, people are way more likely to cut their ex out entirely, wiping out any digital trace of them from their profiles. It starts with unfriending and unfollowing, and then with deleting photos, sometimes to the point where an unaware person would have no idea the relationship had ever occurred. If the breakup occurs on more amicable terms, people may stay "friends" on Facebook, but then the little unexpected reminders occur more frequently and can sting just the same.
Having grown up in the digital age, it's hard for me to imagine a time when these considerations were not a normal part of dating and break-ups. But my generation was the first that had to learn to cope with the myriad of complications that arise when our relationships IRL collide with our digital lives. We've had to learn as we go, using a series of trials and errors until we strike a comfortable balance we can live with. It's uncertain territory, but we're getting better at it with practice. I think we're learning to exercise more self-control online, averting our gaze from our exes' posts when we know it will harm us and focusing instead on using social media to further our own happiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment