Forgetting about your ex after a long relationship must have been so much easier before Facebook existed. I imagine when you broke up with someone in college 10 years ago, you would walk away from your last encounter with your ex-significant other with him still occupying your mind. But hopefully over the next few days and weeks, he gradually would slip out of your mind and daily stream of consciousness until he was only a passing thought every time you drove by the Chinese restaurant where the two of you used to order take out. You would take down all of the pictures of the two of you that were hung around your room and put all of your old letters and mementos into a shoebox in the back of your closet. You'd ask your friends not to talk about him in front of you, and if he was really still consuming your mind, you could always delete him from your cell phone to prevent any tragically irreversible late-night calls.
Nowadays though, Facebook makes clearing your mind of your ex 10 times harder, especially for those of us with high levels of curiosity and low levels of self-control. You still can take down all of the photos you had framed around your room, but it would take a whole lot longer to try to de-tag every picture anyone ever has put up of the two of you. Even longer to ask every friend to take each of those photos down all together. So then every time you happen to be browsing through photos of yourself on Facebook when you're in the market for a new profile picture, there he'll be, in your face all over again. Your old notes and love letters may be tucked away in the back of your closet, out of sight and out of mind, but with Facebook, as soon as you have the slightest lapse in willpower, you can hit "See Friendship" and immediately begin reminiscing about every thought the two of you shared on your Wall-to-Wall.
Without Facebook, you can pretend that all of your mutual friends have clearly taken your side in the post-breakup division of friends, but it's harder to do that when you can see exactly which of your shared friends are continuing to post funny links and interesting stories on your ex's Wall.
I suppose you could defriend your ex, so as to not have the temptation to painfully peer into his life, but despite all of your best intentions in doing so, you mostly will come across as cruel, childish or petty.
Apart from just exacerbating all of the issues that come up with an ex in a pre-Facebook world, the social networking site also creates a whole bunch of new torturous scenarios all on its own. Every time it comes up on your News Feed that your ex and so-and-so are now friends, you might wonder what exactly is the nature of that new relationship. You can see the pictures he's tagged in, who he's standing close to, where exactly he's been hanging out. You can see which events he's hit "Attending" for, and wonder if you're going to run into him if you attend the same event, or if maybe you should just stay home. Every status he puts up, every random sampling of heartbroken song lyrics, you might wonder if he's putting them up to slyly refer to you - or if he's now referencing someone else.
If you let yourself get caught up in every torturous, scary, dark place Facebook opens up for you, then you might find out clearing your mind of that someone is even harder than it ever needed to be - or harder than it was before Facebook came along and opened up a window directly into the lives of every person you would have wanted to forget.
On the other hand, Facebook sometimes can be used positively to connect with old lovers and ex-boyfriends. If it weren't for Facebook, my mom's old prom date from high school might not have reached out and friended her, contacting her again after so many years. It was simply an added delight for her to see that his career now consists of playing the part of Freddie Mercury in a Queen cover band. So despite the fact that Facebook can bring unnecessary torture after a hard break-up, if you wait long enough, it just might bring you a funny surprise as well.
Jordan's column runs biweekly Mondays. She can be reached at j.hart@cavalierdaily.com.
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