{"id":1856,"date":"2014-01-19T21:31:59","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T20:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2015-10-24T11:43:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T09:43:31","slug":"21st-century-breakup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1856","title":{"rendered":"21st Century Breakup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"That<\/a>A friend was recently dumped via Facebook. In his ex\u2019s defense, she did write him a personal IM and didn\u2019t post it to his wall.<\/p>\n

Cindy > Gary <\/i><\/p>\n

Hey, we\u2019re through. So long and thanks for the two years of your life. <\/i><\/p>\n

3 likes\u00a0 1 comment<\/p>\n

Gary:\u00a0\u00a0 I’m keeping the jewelry.<\/em><\/p>\n

My 21st<\/sup> century breakup experience was an email a couple years ago. It was from a girl I\u2019d been dating who\u2019d gone abroad. I don\u2019t remember the exact wording, but the gist was clear: I want you out of my way like an old person at a grocery store and I don\u2019t want to spend money on a long distance call. <\/i>It was the grammatical mistakes that were the real kick in the pants. I\u2019d been her teacher.<\/p>\n

After my breakup I asked some students to write a story about the worst breakup they knew about and the stories could have featured at a war crimes trial. One girl told of a friend who\u2019d been dumped by his girlfriend while waiting for her at a restaurant. Yes. It seems that on the way to the restaurant she met another guy on the tram and had a drink with him. After deciding that he was a more suitable mate she texted \u2013 yes, texted \u2013 her current, soon to be ex, boyfriend and dumped him. Another student told of a guy who dumped his girlfriend in a recorded Skype message. His excuse was that he\u2019d tried to call on Skype, but her line was busy.<\/p>\n

Um. What?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no secret that social media and technology are changing social interactions and relationships in our daily lives. IM and skype are replacing face to face conversations. Dating sites are replacing single\u2019s bars. Face to face flirting is being replaced with sexting. Cybersex and webcams are the 21st<\/sup> century\u2019s answer to the one night stand and prostitution. Perhaps the lack of face to face contact is making us less aware of the actual person on the other side of that conversation.<\/p>\n

But breaking up? Come on. In the first place, if you are breaking up with someone it means that you have a relationship with them. And that means you owe them a face to face, good old fashioned dumping. A good breakup should be sweaty and unpleasant. There should be tears and anger and insinuations of poor sexual performance and comments about small penises and big asses that will linger in the brain for months. Breaking up is the one time you should just have the balls to buy someone a beer in their favorite pub and tell them you are screwing their sister. Hypothetically. If you do this on Facebook you are robbing that person of the perfect combination of adrenalin, pain, and shock that will allow them to tell you why you suck right to your face.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

Will the Facebook breakup soon become a matter of changed statuses?<\/p>\n

Cindy Jones is in a relationship with Gary Smith\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 12:01 pm<\/i><\/p>\n

Cindy Jones has changed her status to single 12:03 pm<\/i><\/p>\n

Cindy Jones is now in a relationship with Fred Washington 12:05 pm<\/i><\/p>\n

Gary Smith > Cindy Jones <\/i><\/p>\n

WTF?<\/i><\/p>\n

Cindy Jones > Gary Smith <\/i><\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t you read my status? <\/i><\/p>\n

Maybe breakups will be done as Tweets or Instagram photos in which the dumper and their new mate holding up a sign and making a sad face. Perhaps a whole new meaning for Dropbox. Maybe we\u2019re on the verge of a new social media site \u2013 youvebeendumped.com. A site for the dumped to go and find out they\u2019ve been dumped while Eliot Smith is played in the background and their profiles are released to the other dumped who fit their compatibility.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d write more, but I\u2019ve got to go purchase a domain name and a web host.<\/p>\n

What’s your worst 21st Century getting dumped story?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend was recently dumped via Facebook. In his ex\u2019s defense, she did write him a personal IM and didn\u2019t post it to his wall. Cindy > Gary Hey, we\u2019re through. So long and thanks for the two years of your life. 3 likes\u00a0 1 comment Gary:\u00a0\u00a0 I’m keeping the jewelry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-tW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}