So my friend Frank has this girlfriend who he has been seeing for about 8 months now. A large percentage of their relationship has taken place at a distance. He lives in Italy and she is currently residing in France. Still, they visit each other often and both consider the relationship very seriously. However, they have just canceled their Facebook friendship due to a recent adventure Frank took on facebook throughout a Thursday night with a bottle of Spanish Whiskey.
Frank was never really obsessed with facebook, and attached relatively little significance to it. He liked to see some of the photos his friends put on the web, but he never really got into spending large amounts of time on the social networking site.
One night a few weeks ago, Frank must have been feeling a bit vulnerable or lonely and he went on facebook and took a close look at his girlfriend's page. In my experience with him, I never considered Frank a jealous person, but something snapped in his head when he saw some of the new friendships that she was making out in France. She had mentioned to him that she had met a few friends from the school at which she worked. She also said one night she went out for a few drinks with the professors. Now, Frank was getting a bit paranoid about wining and dining with these French professors and he dove into a drunken espionage binge and started investigating all of the people she was friends with.
After a few hours, many glasses of whiskey, meticulous scrutinizing of numerous facebook photos and analysis of wall posts, the sun rose and Frank came up to my bedroom as I woke up to confess his new found disease.
Now since that evening, the couple has spoken about this trouble, and she has proven her fidelity (or covered her tracks, depending on how you want to look at it). They have since decided to cancel their friendship on facebook in order to prevent this relationship-damaging jealousy from happening again.
I believe it's a bold idea, but a good one. A serious relationship between two people shouldn't necessitate a facebook friendship and the margin of facebook disaster is pretty big in this situation. Maybe the problem isn't facebook, but it's just a lack of discipline on the behalf of the relationship participants. However, I've heard girlfriends and boyfriends say a thousand times, "yeah and then he saw that Brian posted this on my wall and he got all up in my face questioning me about it and stuff." Looking into a SO's life via the facebook window threatens our ability to build trust and respect for privacy, which are some of the most important things in a budding relationship.
Is a facebook divorce a good way to combat relationship jealousy? Or is the divorce a symbol of a greater issue at hand?
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Comments (19)
Greater issue at hand.
Or you could just not have questionable friendships with other people.
Certainly a lack of trust. It's really how I look at it. And while I do catch myself going with it, Facebook related relationship statuses and such is silly. But for me and my girlfriend, it is one of our main forms of communication (since we are in a LDR).
FaceBook is a great place for goofiness. I have a friend that is "in a relationship with" his drag queen persona. People make all sort of flirty or outrageous comments on their all the time. If you start taking it seriously you are going to be in trouble.
greater issue at hand
Facebook: ruins romance.
Facebook is a real killer when it comes to matters of the heart. I'm not attached but I go on a lot of dates - adding people on FB beforehand is a BAD idea. You let them into areas of your life it'd take 10 dates to get into normally.
http://plentymorefishoutofwater.blogspot.com/ - dating blog
@Tiger11007@xanga - Truth.
@AutumnShadowsQ@xanga - my thoughts exactly. :)
There are much bigger issues in that relationship than Facebook. Lack of trust is a huge one. Sounds to me like those two people should not be in a LDR, but that's just me. My husband's in the military, so who am I to say? But I have seen wayyyy too many girls in LDRs who really should not be. Not everyone can handle it.
If he trusted her it shouldn't be an issue.
hahhaha. if it looks like it through the facebook window...well that's probably how it is. they are seriously going to just take away his ability to check up on her because he needs to "trust"..?.sounds to me like this is the best way for her to do whatever she wants and for him to hope that what he doesn't know won't hurt him...or give him an std. To me they should stay friends and deal with the bigger issue of behaving in a trustworhty fashion and trusting one another as a consequence. There are two sides to every issue and it sounds like they only dealt with his.
Serious relationships shouldnt be friends on social networks, however social networks do come in handy sometimes. I discovered I had been shifted to 'The other woman' via a social network.Imagine if I hadn't seen that? I would still be played right now.
It's just another way for jealousy and possessiveness to manifest itself. It doesn't have anythign to do with facebook, and unfriending each other isn't goign to fix their fucked up relationship.
I think it's insecurity. Whenever I date a guy, I try not to look at his social networking sites for this exact reason. I don't want to see things that would upset me. And these sites also shove in our faces that we are individuals, and it tends to hurt the other person to realize that you are not, in fact, two people as one.
No one should force to give up their social life for an insecure SO.
I hate Facebook, lol.
@Keeko1@xanga - Very true
I completely agree with your last sentence... and the term... "facebook disaster"... that's one of the many reasons I deleted my facebook account... I also agree with PMFoutofwater's comment... It's too much personal stuff on the internet... which is too accessible all at once... and with little to no anonymity... Thanks for the post! I'll be recommending it to my friends! =)
MUCH larger issue at hand. If you can't handle being friends on facebook, you should not be in a serious relationship. You have some growing up to do and some trust issues to deal with.