My Breakup

Yesterday I broke up with my girlfriend.

Well, according to Facebook we broke up. I've found Facebook to be pretty fascinating, and amusing. And recently I've noticed how much attention people are paying to the newsfeed on Facebook, and the subtleties of 'status changes'. Like last week when my sister listed ‘is wrecked’ as her status. I immediately sent her a message asking 'sick or tired'. 'Both' was the response I got. And when a friend removed the line 'In a relationship' (not changed it to otherwise, just removed it) I got curious. And when my girl listed that she was 'sick of stuffing up' our friends asked he what she'd done. I got curious about the power of these little changes, and of the significance of that one little line in the Facebook News feed, and decided to conduct an experiment. And it worked, not only with friends on Facebook, but also those that aren't.

So yesterday we broke up. I dropped down that menu and changed my status from 'in a relationship with...' to 'single' and for good measure, I checked the box to indicate I was looking for something new. About half an hour after I did, my younger sister sent me a message “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?” That’s more communication and care shown than when we lived-in the same house and saw each other face to face. “Sorry to worry you. Just a social experiment.” When my mother got home from work, she asked me concerned “is there anything I can do” My younger sister (Facebook user) called my older sister (non-user) who called my mother. Who then took about ten minutes of convincing that I really hadn’t been dumped, that it was just a fake break-up. My girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend) experienced similar – her brother, concerned , rushed downstairs to tell her mother (smart girl, though had had the foresight to tell her mum about it).

On the phone to a non Facebook mate later that night, he broached the subject “there's no easy way to say this – I heard you guys broke up.” He then offered to come round once he got off work, if I needed to talk, vent, play some football. About an hour later another mate called up – also non Facebook. He'd heard as well. A little later an email from a Facebook mate – “You want to catch up? I've got the week free if you need someone to spend time with.”

It was strange in a way. I expected her friends would rally around her in that time, but it seemed the boys were better at looking after me than the girls were for her. It was nice though, to know how much my friends and family actually cared. In the eight hours that we were split the word spread quickly, not just across the world of Facebook and my 219 friends, but spilled out into the real world too. With no clear word from her or myself, just a change of information in a little box and one line of text with blue highlights. Welcome to the social network that is Facebook.