Ex and why

If there's one rite of passage that confirms you've emotionally arrived at adulthood, it's an emotionally fraught break-up.  You know the drill; your-once-one-and-only-now-new-ex calls, after what may have been months of epic verbal battles and grudging truces, to announce that it's not working and you should break up.  You then spend weeks, maybe even months, chewing it all over in your jumbled little head.  You start to torment yourself (and anyone who is brave or bored enough to listen) with the following questions; what's wrong with me; could I have done things differently; does (s)he miss me; what is (s)he doing now; do they have somebody else.  It's these last three questions that tend to motivate you to engage in the kind of frenzied snoopage that is usually associated with socially inept weirdos and government agencies.  Yet, sometimes curiosity and the very human need to torture oneself just gets too much and one simply has to....

Now, until relatively recently finding out the salacious details of your now ex's life was much more difficult.  I'm not saying that it wasn't possible to find out whether or not they were seeing somebody else or whether they had mentioned you in a conversation.  Indeed, gossips and misery vultures have always existed to hoover up and disseminate news, however banal or corrosive, to those most or least in need of this week's fix.  The thing is that now we have social media we can find this stuff for ourselves so we needn't rely on busybodies to find and hand over the dirt; we can find it for ourselves.  I'm working on the assumption that the ex is somebody who posts their entire being and doings online, which mine aren't.  I'm also assuming that you haven't been blocked from seeing your ex's content...

Step forward Mr Zuckerburg, who is working to decrease the suffering of the broken hearted everywhere.  How's he doing this, you ask.  Well, Facebook are currently trialing a function whereby if a user changes their relationship status from "in a relationship" to "single," the site will ask them whether they would like to restrict the material that their now ex partner can access via the site.

The skeptic in me wonders why this is even deemed necessary.  Surely, if you don't want your now ex to see your beach pics and details of the relationship that you dumped them for, you could just "unfriend" them.  What ever happened to making a clean break if that is what you deemed to be the most appropriate course of action.  Why oh why must we remain friends with everyone online, when we wouldn't in real life?  Cynic that I am I have often theorised that the reason why so many people keep their exes as friends online is so that they can keep them as a sort of insurance option (in case other options don't work out), whilst keeping them at a safe distance.  In other words; you're maintaining contact with them but you're not engaging with them on a level beyond that which is convenient.

That said, I do like the idea of the site blocking any little reminders of your relationship, such as photo tagging and that timehop thing.  I know.  I know.  In times of old you wouldn't have needed this.  You would have either archived or binned any little reminders of your relationship so that they didn't haunt you at your weakest moments.  This was before the likes of Facebook came along and essentially allowed us to archive and broadcast every aspect of our lives so that we could relive every moment, picture by picture, status by inane status.  Whether we like it or not social media may just be here to stay.  The question is not simply how we avoid or get rid of it; it is now how do we utilise it without it encroaching on our mental and emotional space.  This may be one solution to this question.

It's been a long time

So, I've been away from this blog for longer than I intended.  I have no excuse, other than life and adult stuff just getting in the way.  Like so many of my other creative projects, this blog has sort of fallen by the wayside, which is a crying shame because I enjoy writing.

Disappointingly, I haven't actually done or been involved in anything beyond working and day to day living.  I'm finding that I am becoming increasingly weighed down by the business of being an adult and just having to fend for myself.  It tends to be the little pernickety things that prove to be most time consuming; ironing, getting to and from places and sorting through mountains of paperwork (how do I accumulate so much of this?).  I swear that my time was not wasted in these ways when I was younger.  Or maybe I just cared about my messy living room less.  On reflection, the latter is the most likely reason.  I don't know why there has been such a sea-change in my attitude.  Could it be because now that I am thirty I feel I need to start acting thirty.  How ever a thirty year old may or may not act.  There is probably a spectrum of thirty-something behaviour and where one sits on that spectrum is probably largely dictated by personal circumstances and standards.  Even so, I still feel this pressure to be less slovenly and more productive.  Thus, sleeping in and remaining in my pajamas until past noon is no longer permissible in the way that it was when I was a twenty something year old woman.  If I am not at work then I MUST use my days off wisely; namely by doing boring household chores and running errands.

As I type this I am beginning to see the silliness in these sentiments; I am no less entitled to "me time" than I was when I was a student or when I had first properly left home at twenty five.  Whilst blogging may not seem to be as productive as baking, I still believe that it is productive, not least for the personal and creative potential that it presents.  If somebody happens upon this blog and is entertained or inspired by it then that is a bonus.  For now I am happy to have a platform from which I can share my views and observations of the world.  This is why I am going to make a more concerted effort to keep this blog up to date.