Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Unpersonals: Breaking Up, The Unpersonals Way
filed under: Unpersonals, Web Sex Index by Lux Nightmare
I stopped following someone on Twitter when it became clear that his tweets were never going to lead to us having a “chance” meeting.
When things went south with an ex-boyfriend – the first and only person I ever met through Friendster – I removed him as a friend.
And let’s not even talk about the saga of LiveJournal’s relationship to my former relationships.
We’ve spent a lot of time discussing how Unpersonals can facilitate the beginning of a relationship – but what about the other end? How do Unpersonals come in to play as a relationship begins to wind down?
There is, of course, the initial response of changing one’s relationship status from “Taken/In A Relationship/Seeing Someone/Whatever” to “Single” (and by the way, this whole process is part of why I am loathe to list my relationship status on the Internet – it’s so incredibly annoying to change it back and forth, on a million different sites, as my status evolves): but that is, in some ways, too obvious, too easy a discussion.
More interesting, in the world of Unpersonals, is the question of whether or not to sever virtual ties with someone when the real world bond has deteriorated. When you’ve broken up with someone, do you delist them as a Flickr contact? Or do you just demote them, changing their status in your world from friend to contact?
How we manage our virtual social networks in the face of changes in our social lives says a great deal about us, both in terms of how we view our relationships and how we view our chosen Unpersonals.
On a site like MySpace, where random, meaningless friending is rampant (case in point: I am “friends” with MikeSpace, Jada Bloom, and Miz X, none of whom I recognize or actually know), is there really any point to going through the trouble of defriending someone just because you’re no longer fucking? Or does taking that toxic ex out of your Friend Space send the message that, yes, they are now worth less to you than Shitty Band #5?
My personal feelings on question of whether or not to defriend has evolved over time, and varies depending on the relationship (and site) in question. I unfriendstered two exes (both painful break ups) because their presence on my page was an unpleasant reminder of our past relationship; likewise, my LiveJournal has always been off limits to anyone I’ve severed ties with. But other exes – or at least, people I’ve stopped sleeping with – have remained in my world of MySpace, Dodgeball, Flickr, Friendster, or what have you friends. For relationships that simply fade away, the defriending seems unnecessarily harsh: it’s easier to simply let that person stay along for the ride, to passively remain friends as a gesture of good will, a suggestion of some kind of future friendship.
As for my Twitter breakup? I got tired of getting “This is what I’m doing!” texts from someone who wasn’t going to be including me in his plans – the onslaught of text messages constantly setting off my phone felt too invasive, too personal, too close. But even after I deleted him from my Twitter, I still kept him on as one of my Flickr friends: who knows, maybe there’s some hope for us after all.
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A while back, I went through a particularly painful breakup with someone who’s on consumating. So I thumbed her down, of course. As a coping mechanism this seems both childish and comically ineffectual, but really it was a matter of getting her off the “My Peeps” list, to avoid the unhappy reminder. The whole experience actually soured me for a while on consumating, and I’m still not into it as much as I used to be. Which is probably a good thing.
I also never update my relationship status. I’m not defined by it, it’s annoying to update, and it’s really none of your business. Also, sometimes the options that are given just don’t really fit.
I’m just holding my thumbs for the first true Twitter breakup.
As to changing status (and Ray and I had already had a related discussion), I would be even more wary to — for example — turn it to Taken when said possible Taker is also among the people who would see it. How does one navigate that?
Similarly, when one has (ahem) creative and modern relationships, how does one even quantify that just given a few checkboxes to choose from? ‘Available, easy, has a tendency to settle down when least expected, but loves to keep a roving eye all the same’? Give me that UI.
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