Miami Student

Issue date: 8/24/07 Section: OpEd Page

So, I dated this guy for three years (three years too long if you ask me now) and we went through a tumultuous break-up at the beginning of the summer. But no matter how much things have changed between us recently, for better or worse, we did experience a lot together: we saw many great concerts, took mini trips, entered college together and, side by side, we even experienced the invention and unprecedented rise of Facebook.

We tagged each other in pictures, poked one another repeatedly, created events together and invited our friends. We had one another in our profile pictures, sent random "I love you" messages and we were even in a Facebook relationship. Needless to say, things were great.

And then I got dumped. Since Facebook wasn't around, or at least so wildly popular when we began dating, it was then we experienced something else together: a full-fledged Facebook breakup.

Unless you've been living in a cave or you're one of those annoying people who boycott Facebook just because everybody's doing it, you know it has changed the way we break up forever. Nowadays, when a couple goes their separate ways, in addition to sobbing over old pictures and taking a knife to the T-shirts he left at your apartment (wait … maybe that was just me …), they also make the decision to change their "Relationship Status."

Personally, I didn't waste one Facebook second continuing to be linked to the scumbag that was now my ex-boyfriend and I was the first to end it online. However, everyone has their own preference when it comes to making this profile change that everyone, and I mean everyone, is going to notice.

I recently learned of a new trick that one of my friends used when she and her boyfriend broke up. Instead of just deleting her "In a Relationship" status, she also changed her religious and political views, quotes and residence. This way when she showed up in everyone's recently updated friends and newsfeeds, it just appeared that she gave her profile a facelift and it kept her break-up incognito, at least for a little while.

Facebook has also affected how we cope with our feelings
post-breakup. Now instead of wondering what your ex did the night you broke up or how ugly the girl he left you for is (What? Just me again?), you can log-on and check out the pictures of him and all the giggly, one-fruity-drink-and-they're-drunk-and-kissing-their-girlfriends kind of girls he's hanging out with now. And thanks to Mini-Feed, you can also find out what parties or events he's going to so you can take the high road and plan to avoid him all together or show up looking incredibly hot and flirt with one of his friends.

Continued...

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