Why Facebook Can Virtually Ruin Our Relationships...

Every relationship requires hard work.  My most rewarding ones have been those that have come with painstaking work - for those that know me best they know I am highly impatient and always want things to fall in place quickly and easily.  But when that happens I am usually over it soon anyway.

Recently I put my Facebook account on freeze. I did this because I once again disobeyed my cardinal rule about not making my personal relationships public on Facebook. I did it anyway because I was so excited and couldn't hold back.  Plus I am what you would call a "Facebook Addict" even though my account is now deactivated and I have been cured for almost a month now.  I also made it public because I was dating several people when I met the man I publicly displayed in photos all over my wall and I just wanted them to get the hint without having to tell each one.  I hate that crucial conversation and unfortunately was really good at casual dating but not at the real deal.  Then I got an e-mail that reinforced the decision I made to cut ties from the relationship-connecting-and-then-destroying machine we call FB. Here's the jist...

While on my mission I met a beautiful couple with three gorgeous children.  They were active members of the Mormon Church which is obviously how I knew them and they we're wonderful to me.  We became close and kept in touch through Christmas cards, e-mails, and once I had a Facebook account, through occasional wall posts.  The e-mail I received, however, was not of the "here's all the great things our family has been doing lately." variety. It was from the husband explaining to me that he hoped he wouldn't lose my friendship but he had fallen out of love with his wife and was moving to a different country to find himself.  He told me vague details about the reasoning behind it and asked that I remain his friend.  Saddened by this news I responded and told him how sorry I was to hear about the divorce and that my heart broke for him, his wife and their children.  Of course I would always be a friend, but I urged him to have faith in Heavenly Father and try to fix whatever he could to restore peace in his life and in theirs.  I didn't hear back and time went on.

A few short months later I sent out a Christmas e-mail to everyone in my personal contact book through Gmail. I didn't go through each address as there were hundreds, and subsequently didn't notice that their old family e-mail was on the list that his wife was now monitoring.  She wrote me back and with regretful tone also told me about what had happened and wasn't sure if I knew but that her husband had developed a Facebook romance with a woman in a foreign country and that he decided to end their marriage and leave their family to go meet a woman he had never known in person - simply through Facebook messages and chat sessions.   Now I have had my heart broken before and I know what it feels like to not have an appetite and cry yourself to sleep until miraculously you just feel better one day, but I have to tell you, it felt like my heart was breaking 5 times all at once.  For the husband, the now ex-wife, the three children, and the Facebook mistress that was about to receive a man into her arms with no character or resolve to work at a relationship after the newness wears off.  It hurt SO bad and I wasn't even directly involved.  But then I remembered a few things...

I have been cheated on 8 times and 5 of those started with a Facebook interaction. It is an easy place for people to be shady because there are lots of mutual friends to start connecting with and it seems really innocent - nothing "actually" happens from flirting with a virtual person right?  In reality it can be highly destructive to foster online romances even when there is no initial intention to cheat.  People engage in these romances to get outside of the pressures of real life and real work in real relationships.  It is easy with an online love interest.  It is new and exciting and unpredictable.  You can live the first stage of a relationship again without the guilt.  But I see several things wrong with this and here are just two. 1 - when you are getting your flirt on with someone online you start neglecting the person you are really with and they often start feeling, lonely and rejected within their own relationship.  2 - when the real relationship starts feeling less and less exciting because you are putting all the romantic efforts into virtual people, that starts to become your reality and you start to think that the grass is greener on the Facebook side of the hill.


This post has been far too long already - I try to keep it short but I just feel so strongly about this stuff.  I used to think that Facebook would make my social life better and there were many great things that happened.  I connected with people I forgot I had ever met - including friends I had in Kindergarten.  But I think Facebook can also make you extremely lonely - if you only have virtual friends, or if you sabotage your real life relationships in favor of Facebook ones.  I will be back on Facebook soon because I love it - but I will be more careful this time:).