Unfriending My Ex: And Other Things I'll Never Do

by Kim Stolz

  In her online column on the Psychology Today website, Dr. Pamela Haag details a study called “More Information Than You Ever Wanted,” which demonstrates that Facebook and other social media sites “enhance jealousy” in relationships. Essentially, the site keeps us in a “romantic jealousy feedback loop.” On Facebook, partners are privy to information they might not have previously discovered, which has the potential to incite jealousy. The jealousy then leads to more significant surveillance, which can expose even more jealousy-inducing fare. Dr. Haag mentioned that some consider Facebook surveillance to be addiction as well. The people who admitted to me that they have hacked into their significant other’s account or looked through their phones aren’t crazy. Relationships put our hearts on the line, and the possibility that we can either confirm our fears or rid ourselves of worry by simply clicking a mouse or unlocking a phone proves irresistible for most of us.

  My friend Colin had an interesting experience with snooping while on a break with his longtime girlfriend Donna. Colin and Donna had been dating on and off (and by “on and off” I mean that they broke up and got back together at least thirty times in three years). During one of their breaks, Colin signed on to Match.com. He figured now was as good a time as any. He needed a clean slate and Match.com seemed like the safest way to get it. One day, Colin was “winked” at by a girl who in her photo bore an extremely close resemblance to his ex Donna (the photo was a little blurry but tall, brown hair, and skinny were enough to spark his interest). Great, he thought, just my type (in looks anyway!). He winked back. He signed on a few days later to see if this hot Donna look-alike had made the next move. Indeed she had. The girl had written him a message. Excited, he opened it up to find just two words: “Fuck You.” Turned out Donna had discovered perhaps a new and somewhat nuanced way to stalk one’s exes, via a dating site. Sadly for Colin, Donna not only flicked him off via Match message, but she screenshotted his profile and sent it with a scathing message about him to everyone they knew. One of their main reasons for breaking up in the first place was a lack of trust, and now Colin’s attempt at safe and anonymous dating had become dangerous as well. He closed his Match.com account the next day.

  The fact is, even if two people fundamentally trust, love, and care for each other, the little machines that bind us together and provide us with so much information and access have made us more suspicious, controlling, and easy to manipulate—and that can be immensely damaging to any relationship. I have been on both sides of the fence—obsessing over details on a girlfriend’s Facebook page as well as feeling like my social media accounts were under constant surveillance. There were times when I allowed my imagination, insecurity, and paranoia to take over my (not always incorrect) thoughts. The use of text and other smartphone technologies like WhatsApp and Snapchat can cause increased suspicion and irrational thoughts because they make secret messaging easy. We wonder why our friends and significant others are reading our notes but not writing back, or why our messages aren’t getting through. I can remember the times when I’ve said good night to a girlfriend before she went to sleep, then sent a quick “I love you!” and watched as the message didn’t go through. Paranoia abounds: Who could she be talking to? Who would her last phone call of the night be to—if not me? Am I being cheated on? These feelings and questions, while irrational, are altogether common.

  On the other hand, being monitored is no walk in the park. When I was with Brenda, I felt so closely watched that I felt the urge to delete even the most innocent of texts and e-mails. They just weren’t worth the discussion. My urge to delete so as not to discuss was actually one of the worst ideas I ever had—because one day, my texts to a friend didn’t quite line up. Brenda could tell I had deleted something and even though I was truly doing nothing wrong and had just deleted a selfie my friend had taken to show me her new dress, I looked like a criminal. Four hours of fighting and convincing later, I realized I should have just kept the texts there. No one likes a deleter. So truly, on both sides of the coin, it’s not a fun game. You feel either suffocated and monitored or jealous and panicked. Without social media and smartphones, instead of dealing with those terrible feelings, you might just be watching old episodes of Twin Peaks together (or The X Factor or Modern Family if you aren’t still rewatching a David Lynch show from 1990 like me).

  In a way, social media has made us all snoops—suspicious because we’re all aware that the potential for cheating is just a click away. Knowing how easy it is to find out about another’s deception by checking social media profiles, text histories, and e-mail logs can breed a very real compulsion. But it doesn’t feel good to snoop. Best-case scenario, you learn that your boyfriend or girlfriend’s slate is clean—but the suspicion still doesn’t subside. And because we feel compelled to keep checking, it’s creating a whole new way to cheat, even if our partner isn’t. The fact of the matter is that even if nothing is found, the simple transgression can ruin a relationship. A good friend once told me, “I have been the victim of the dreaded hack-in. I left my e-mail up once and my girlfriend went through everything and questioned me about over sixty e-mails. Even though there weren’t any instances of infidelity [on my part], the complete lack of trust and invasion of privacy caused our relationship to be tainted and ultimately end.”

  Knowing that temptation abounds can also make us—or our partners—hungry for more control in our relationships, which can be just as detrimental. An MTV initiative called A Thin Line, which is aimed at preventing digital abuse, found that more than one in ten people have had a boyfriend or girlfriend demand passwords, and more than one in ten people have also had a significant other demand that they unfriend or unfollow an ex on a social networking site like Facebook or Twitter. Sometimes, people will even force each other to “friend” an ex so that the ex can see the person happy and joyful in a new relationship. It’s backward but it happens. The quest for transparency in our relationships can be suffocating.

  Carly, one of my most mature and levelheaded friends, had a breakdown because of Find My Friends, an app that, according to the site, lets those who are connected see where their friends are located geographically. Carly and her boyfriend had been in a long-distance relationship for five years, and they found that each knowing where the other was and being able to picture each other at work, the store, or the gym made them feel closer in a way. Over time, however, Carly found herself becoming less rational when it came to the location obsession Find My Friends had ignited in her. She said, “I found myself using it several times throughout the day to casually check and see what Aaron was doing . . . One night, we got into a silly fight and ended up not speaking the next day. Unbeknownst to him, I followed him all day via Find My Friends to see what he was up to: office, doctor, meetings, etc. By the afternoon, I was pretty upset that he had not tried to contact me. I figured he was busy and would text me when he got home. I checked the app around seven P.M. and saw that he was at a hockey game. I texted him saying, ‘Happy to see you care more about a sports team than you do about my feelings.’ I text-screamed at him until I eventually saw (through Find My Friends) that he had left the game and gone home before the first period had even ended.” Aaron broke up with Carly a few months later because he felt she had changed and that her recent tendencies to be “crazy” and “controlling” had ruined their relationship. I was upset to hear this but not surprised; the digiverse has left a pile of relationship rubble in its wake, breaking up even those couples that had previously seemed quite solid. Carly had been pretty normal before social media, but Find My Friends had turned her into a crazy and suffocating girlfriend. Like the BlackBerry Messenger and iPhone read receipt notifications—and most of the access we get through social media sites—the app provided too much information and planted seeds of doubt where there needn’t have been doubt.

  We can blame Facebook and other social media sites for our transgressions, but there does come a point when our personal demons take over. Across the world, there have bee
n some very extreme cases in which Facebook has ruined not only relationships but entire offscreen lives. In one story I read, an off-duty cop checked up on his wife’s online profile and found that she was having a flirtatious exchange with one of his friends. He confronted the mutual friend, punched him in the face, and ripped his shirt. The cop ended up on administrative leave and was later charged with battery. His story is benign compared to that of a young woman named Sarah, twenty-six, who was stabbed thirteen times by her estranged husband after he checked her Facebook page and found that she had changed her relationship status to single. The couple had split four days before the murder. Just last year, a Philadelphia man stabbed his wife because he was angry that she “liked” someone else’s post on Facebook. Another woman ended up dead after she changed her relationship status to “single” and announced she was leaving her husband by posting on her wall. Her husband allegedly saw the status update and murdered her before killing himself. And finally, a long-distance relationship between a man in Trinidad and a woman in London turned deadly after he found a photo on Facebook of her with another man and went to London and murdered her. Although these stories are clearly extreme, they point to the irrational feelings and rage that we can feel from learning information through social networking sites. The jealousy, embarrassment, and anger caused by seeing items on an ex’s Facebook profile (or any social media site) can lead a generally sane and levelheaded individual to emotional breakdown and incite fights, the breakup of friendships and relationships, and in some cases, physical harm and death. With the exception of these dramatic cases, for most of us, the worst-case scenario is that through snooping, our fears will be confirmed. Elissa, a journalist from Manhattan, told me, “I hate that I checked my boyfriend’s e-mails, and I hate that when I did, my fears were confirmed, because that meant I will always check his e-mails from now on.”

  Many believe it is their right to peruse their boyfriend or girlfriend’s e-mail accounts, phone, and Facebook accounts, arguing that “only the guilty have something to hide,” and if someone wants to keep them out of their business, they must be hiding a secret lover or budding flirtation. My friend Laura told me, “I don’t think people should be snooping but I also think there is a clear problem if someone won’t let their girlfriend or boyfriend look through their phone once in a while.”

  I’ve been in relationships with exceptionally private people, and their privacy made me wonder whether they were deceiving me. I tend to leave my e-mail account open and logged in all day long on my home computer, and I have never had a lock on my iPhone. The only times I’ve made sure to sign out of my own accounts were when I was actually hiding a conversation that I did not want my significant other to read, so someone’s intense desire for privacy and diligence in signing out of online accounts makes me nervous. On the other hand, I have dated people who are careful to sign out of their e-mail and Facebook and are always sure to have a password on their phones; I would venture a guess that many readers are thinking that these exes were most likely hiding something from me. I learned, however, that some people are more private and their desire to keep their e-mails and social networking accounts secret has more to do with their values and less to do with their actions.

  Certainly, Facebook provides some advantages in the personal and professional arenas of life. Some people I spoke with even said that Facebook has had a positive effect on their relationships and helped build trust and intimacy. We now know more about the people in our life—what they are thinking about, what amuses them, and who they are hanging out with, as well as what they are doing and with whom. Sarah, a twenty-nine-year-old from Maine, told me, “There is definitely that element where you feel you need to reveal more to your significant other about who wrote on your Facebook wall or who tagged you in a photo . . . Perhaps we become more faithful in our relationships because of this.” While it’s true Facebook and the digital media world do in a way make us more accountable and can call us out on our transgressions, so many of those transgressions are initiated because of Facebook itself.

  A rainy Sunday of meaningless Internet exploration can turn into a full-fledged stalking session. Feelings of rejection that we thought we had moved past can be reanimated by simply clicking through a friend’s Facebook album. Those who have broken your heart reappear through Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and chat statuses. You can unfriend and unfollow but they are always there, connected through other individuals we actually want to hear about. We may forget them, but then a little one-word comment can remind us they exist, sending us reeling into our romantic pasts.

  For those of us who remember a time when these outlets did not exist, we took for granted that after breakups we could erase our exes from our lives and never accidentally (or on purpose) come across the details of their lives. Now we have access to everything. And unless we delete our accounts and disconnect our lives, we will continue in the paranoia-and-jealousy loop, continually checking our significant others’ e-mail and fighting because of what we find on Facebook.

  How many times have I told myself I’m getting off Facebook? The truth is I’m never getting off Facebook. Even though we hate so much of what it yields, we’ll continue to hack in, cheat, and fight, for one reason: we can’t stop.

  8

  Does This Filter Make Me Look Famous?

  I was meant for reality television. I’m going to be famous if I keep tweeting. People love my shit, seriously.

  The words above were spoken by Teddy, a thirty-one-year-old Long Island–born gay hairstylist with whom I had become friends through work. He could not sing, dance, or cook. He was not athletic, nor was he particularly good-looking. He was not funny, nor did he possess any particularly unique knowledge. The most interesting thing about him was that he was potentially the worst speller I had ever met. The only reality show on which he had a shot of being cast was Bravo’s (now defunct) hair competition Shear Genius, which he denounced as “not good enough,” claiming that no one had ever come out of that show and become truly famous (even though Tabatha Coffey, the winner from season one, got her own show and earned a place in reality show history). I asked Teddy what show he would be on, if he could choose; he said he thought there was a lot of interest out there for a show about his own life as a celebrity hairstylist and that he was working on a pitch to send around to “the networks.”

  I first thought Teddy was joking around, but after spending more time with him I realized he was serious. Teddy was someone who had always wanted to be famous—I think he became a hairstylist just so he could be closer to celebrities—and I wondered if he would have worked so hard at it or aspired to that particular kind of fame before the advent of reality television or Twitter.

  All of our friends knew that there was nothing about Teddy that would ever draw an audience. After all, we were in a post–Queer Eye age, so he was about six years too late for any producer to place him on a show merely because he was gay. (I got “lucky” when I was cast on America’s Next Top Model because lesbians were far less prevalent on reality television in 2005, and putting one in the midst of a dozen aspiring female models was still considered “interesting.”) No, there was nothing about Teddy that would convince anyone that he was “made” for reality television, and yet he believed wholeheartedly that it was his destiny and made it his life’s passion and long-term goal—even more than helping celebrities and regular humans look fabulous.

  Teddy was resolved to make fame a reality. He was a Twitter star in his own mind; he once held a contest among his fans (he did not have any fans) to give $100 to his one thousandth follower. Around 405, he made it $100 for his five hundredth follower. One week later, he owed $100 to his aunt Jenny. But Teddy didn’t give up. He truly believed he could “make it” by remaining “in touch” with his celebrity acquaintances and getting them to retweet his posts and @ him on their own. Despite the fact that his tweets and updates weren’t even mildly compelling, he did not hesitate to declare at every opportunity that he
was more interesting than other outrageous reality stars. It was nice to see one of my peers so positive and full of hope for his future, but it would have been more heartening if he’d had some legitimate aspiration beyond having his unremarkable persona put on a pedestal by a television platform. Teddy’s fantasy seemed to me like a narcissist’s wet dream.

  But what do the professionals say? The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of the psychiatric profession, defines people with narcissistic personality disorder as not only grandiose in their actions and statements (I was meant to be on reality television!) but also having a dire “need for admiration” and a “lack of empathy.” As Dr. Elias Aboujaoude explains in Virtually You, “DSM-certified narcissists usually believe they are ‘special and unique and can only be understood or should associate with other high-status people.’ ”

  Forgive me for playing armchair psychologist, but Teddy’s behavior corresponded with this diagnosis: his constant tweets, his off-the-charts self-concept, and his belief that he should only hang out with celebrities, those whom our superficial society put up on a pedestal. In general, Teddy’s use of social media was, if anything, amplifying his condition.

  Dr. Aboujaoude argues that the number of people with narcissistic disorder has increased in recent years as the Internet fosters some of the characteristics that typify the personality disorder. Whether it is due to something inherent in our psychology or to our nonstop use of social media, most of us post and tweet and update seeking admiration and affirmation. We yearn for—and expect—others to look at us, to comment on our posts and reply to our texts. This never-ending loop feeds self-obsession; we require the attention to satisfy our narcissism, and so we share more, becoming even more infatuated with our display and how others will see us.