Switzerblog

I saw this tweet today from Linda Thomas (@TheNewsChick):

Would You Break Up via Facebook? http://bit.ly/aqGcyL

Following the link, I found the Mashable article by Jolie O’Dell (@JolieODell) – and holy shit, y’all!  25% of people who responded to a poll had found out they’d been dumped by seeing it on Facebook.  It’s like the most passive-aggressive thing ever.  21% said they would break up with someone by changing their status to single, and nearly half update their status so people think they have plans, whether they do or not!

It brought to mind a tweet I saw earlier today, from @singlegirlie, about the pain of finding out via Facebook that the “one that got away” had gotten married.  She was crushed by this.

And of course, all of this brought to mind the drama of the last year or so in my life, and the role Facebook has played in that. There was some, um, tension between the ex and I concerning her Facebook activity towards the end of our marriage. No, she didn’t break up with me via Facebook – I mean, I was right there all the time, so no need of that!  But there was a lot of commenting back and forth between someone that, let’s say, I wasn’t a fan of. So, seeing that while I was also very aware that my marriage was crumbling was pretty painful. Once we formally split, we stayed Facebook friends.  We definitely put in the effort to stay friends, and I’m sure neither of us wanted to hurt the other (or start an unnecessary fight) by unfriending during what was already a difficult time. But her new life was quite different from mine, at least as reported via status updates.  It was all “OMG can’t wait for the concert with my super duper amazing friends of which I have millionz!! ” all the time.  Sitting alone in my studio apartment, that was a big ol’ dagger!  By the way, she does not write like that. That was for your lulz.

Eventually, I just blocked her so I couldn’t see her status updates in my feed.  But ye gods, I could still see her photos!  Most of the time, that was no big deal…until she posted the first photos of her and her current boyfriend.  It was tough, I’ll admit it.  I mentioned it to her (she knew I’d blocked her status updates), mostly conversationally, and to her credit she offered to pull them down, but hell, she has a right to put pictures of her and her boyfriend up there.  All I’ll say is thank goodness Facebook changed the UI so you don’t have to see those photos anymore!

After a while, she asked if we could change our relationship statuses to single.  I’d held off, but eventually it became obvious that that’s what we were; there was no avoiding it. We agreed to change at the same time-ish, but she beat me by a few minutes.  Seeing that “Mrs. Switzer is now single” pop up in the feed…OW.  Didn’t like that.  It took me a couple days to manage that, I have to be honest.  Luckily, tons of friends came out of the woodwork to wish me well and offer kind words and thoughts, and oh my was that needed! 

I rarely visit her page now, but once in a while the pull is too great.  You know, 13 years of being together doesn’t just go poof overnight; sometimes curiosity just gets the better of you.  And yeah.  It hurts.  It probably will surprise me with pangs like this for a long time.  90% of the time, I’m happier without her; we’d run our course and it just wasn’t working anymore.  But it isn’t like I was married to some horrible bitch; she’s funny and can be a dear friend – it’d be easier if she was some psycho twat!  Anyway, that isn’t the point here…we’re talking about Facebook.  Would I avoid those pangs if I unfriended her?  Yeah.  I’d also lose the phantom wedding ring that I can STILL feel sometimes if I cut off my ring finger.  But what would I gain?  It doesn’t hurt anything to be Facebook friends.  I’ve set up the filter so I only see what I want to see, and she can keep track of my foibles.  We’ll never be as close as we were, but we do still care about each other, and I don’t mind her having a way to know what I’m up to.

There’s no one right answer.  Singlegirlie still looked at the one that got away, and was crushed, but you know what? It also reminded her of those good times that they had.  The pain can surprise you for a long time, but it will eventually stop, and you’ll still have those memories, and Facebook provides you, if you want it, a way to reach out later and reconnect. For others, that pain may be too sharp and the right thing to do is unfriend and block. But you know what? I can say that neither I nor the ex ever posted anything intended to hurt the other.  And when we changed our relationship statuses, it was done in agreement and as coordinated as possible, so no one would be any more surprised or hurt than necessary.  And as for me, I changed my page so relationship status is off the table.  I decided I don’t need to advertise that shit anymore! 

All social media has the potential to be a sword that cuts swift and deep, and can be at its worst when wielded by a coward.  Some of us – me included – have decided the risk of a sharp cut is worth the tradeoff in new, unexpected friendships that can be found in this strange and unique world.  It’s just a chance you take.  Breaking up hurts, no matter how you do it or how you find out.  Face to face, over the phone, via email or text, Twitter or Facebook.  A coward will be cruel, a friend will be as kind as they can, but it’s always going to hurt.  Be careful with yourself, and try to avoid those cowards.  And if you’re cut by one, remember that this new world has given you many, many other friends who can be reached to help salve that wound, more quickly and effectively than ever before.  We’re all together in this now.

Damn, I need to post more often! Okay, before I get into this, a quick update – the dentist says I need more work than he can do.  Teeth are in great shape, just crooked, but my gums need surgery before we can do braces.  So, a year from braces and another year or so from a smile I can love. Or at least tolerate!  One step at a time, baby…

Okay, so online dating.  Why do so many people do it, when so many people still bitch mightily about it?  In the olden days ten years ago, there was a serious stigma attached to placing personal ads (kids, this is what they were called when you did your dating profile in the newspaper)(newspapers are like blogs, but printed – they’re the things your grandparents read in the morning).  The stigma is gone now, and thanks to the internet, being single has become big business.  But it’s annoying – profiles to fill out, endless emails to write or check, photos to take and crop and post, IM sessions with strangers, and let’s face it…a high failure rate.  Even the successful online daters will have to go through their fair share of bad dates and dry spells.  It happens offline, too, but it feels so much more quantifiable online, for some reason.  So why are there millions of single people out there doing the online dating thing?

We’re lonely.  I’ll call it ironic at risk of misusing irony, but we’re spending so much time online now, that we have even less time for real human interaction.  When you’re single, this is just magnified.  So, despite the frequent claims by online singles that “I don’t want a relationship right now”, we still want to find someone to fill the few hours we have available for real contact with another person.  We long for each other.  It’s the human condition – and I don’t mean that we’re all pining away crying into our pillows – but that we desire the presence of other humans.  We’re social creatures.

We’re vulnerable and afraid.  Let’s face it, meeting new people, especially in an “I’m looking for a relationship” setting or mindset, is nerve-wracking.  It’s scary!  We fear rejection, laughter, loss, hurt.  We fear being embarrassed.  Conversations with strangers, for all but the lucky few who possess social ease, can be fraught with perilous interchanges and opportunities to let someone bring you down.  So we retreat behind our LCD panel.  Surely the computer won’t hurt my feelings!  Surely I’ll be shielded from embarrassment or loss here!  No way I can say something stupid in an email – I have time to correct it before I send it out!

We want a shortcut.  When things are hard, we look for an easier way.  And we’ve trained ourselves to have a pavlovian response to the internet – it’s easier!  Dating is hard!  Let’s do it online!  Even when we’ve been on three different sites and shelled out money and given over hours of our time to finding and posting good photos, writing and re-writing profiles, getting input from friends, and sent or replied to emails, we still convince ourselves that it must be easier online.

Well, it’s not. It’s not easier.  It’s just a different kind of hard.  Of course dating is hard, no matter how you do it!  But you have to find a way that is fun for you.  Some people do enjoy online dating.  I don’t; so I’m finding other ways…some have sucked, some are fun.  But meeting new people can and should be fun, even if it will always be work, of a kind.  And there are no shortcuts – when meeting new people, you will have to risk hurt and loss and rejection.  But you’re also gambling on friendship and love and happiness and laughter.  It’s worth the tradeoff. 

You have to focus on the good you get from this process, or you’ll only keep hurting yourself.  I’m learning this, ever so slowly.  But embracing and prioritizing the fun aspects and positive outcomes of dating allows you to overcome those fears, accept the hurts and rejections as the learning experiences they are, and we begin to see that shortcuts aren’t always the right direction. 

And once we get this under our belt?  Well, I think the lonely part will have already taken care of itself.  Healthy, happy people aren’t lonely people.  That’s my goal.  That’s what I’m working for.

I think I’m supposed to ask a question here so I’ll get some comments that do not come from Russian spam-bot factories…so why do you do online dating?  Where do you do it?  What’s worked and not worked?  Or why did you stop and go to IRL dating, like me?  Feedback, people, feedback! 

Before I get into this, a note: I’m making some changes here at ye blogge.  I’ll be talking more about dating, or the lack of said, and whatever romantic foibles come along.  Politics makes me too angry, and others write about it better than I ever will, so I can’t do that anymore.  I’ll try to salvage my old posts for those who like ‘em – so you’re all set, Mom!  I won’t be naming names or leaving clues here…This isn’t about chronicling actual dates.  As my friend Moxie suggested, this will be entirely about the journey. What am I learning, what have I learned, how have I grown?  Am I growing? Am I becoming a bitter old cat lady (yes)?  I might judge others harshly while I’m at it, and I’ll still say fuck too much. (look away, Mom)

Okay, so I re-entered the pool last January, and after the requisite mourning/wow-am-I-a-mess period, decided in mid-February to start looking around and get back out there. Yes, this was a mistake. That’s not the point, asshole.  Once I stopped running up to women and begging them to love me through my tears, I reassessed and decided to try out Match.com.  Why Match?  Because, unlike eHarmony, they didn’t make me fill out a 463-page questionnaire.  First lesson about online dating: It’s essentially essay questions given by varying evil proctors.  “Tell me about yourself in at least 155 characters but not more than 350!  Use the words “outdoors” and “sporting events”! Make it interesting or you’ll die alone! You have two minutes!!”

Match was easy to understand and navigate, and I was able to very quickly get to the goal, which was browsing.  And what a variety Match offers!  As I have learned, this varies city to city, but in Seattle, there is a great variety of women, large and small, short and tall, black, white, other – a whole smorgasbord.  It was a bit intimidating, but with their search tools, I found I could narrow things down a bit, which helped.  After filling out my profile to what I felt was a comfortable extent, I even sent an email to a lovely lady, expressing interest.  Her response to this, my very first email sent via online dating? “Never contact me again.”  Well!  Clearly this was going to take some getting used to. 

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