An author analyzes with arguments how and why romantic relationships will never be the same again after the rise of Facebook.
In one of the most shocking records in ONEMAN's almost 3-year history, which occurred exactly two weeks ago, none of the 70 people who came in to comment on the text 'Why the woman-hunter turns us off' agreed with me.
I felt alone. I felt cold. A reader twisted the knife in the wound by writing in the comments “Dear columnist, not one of those who took the trouble to write agreed with you.” I was humiliated.
However, scrolling through the comments again and again, my eye fell on some others who, quite justifiably, touched on aspects of the institution of falling that I had not deemed appropriate to include in the text.
Specifically, readers patted the female hunter on the shoulder, saying "girls are doing well, since men don't give a damn about them anymore."
And somewhere there, after months of gestation, the idea for this text was born. I don't agree that men don't fall for it anymore. The only thing that has changed is the context in which it happens. Men fall for it daily and en masse, mainly on Facebook, but also on other powerful social media.
This sentence is a guide to the more complex thought-conclusion that Facebook has dealt fatal blows to what we knew as relationships until ten years ago. Facebook ends relationships, damaging the trust within them.
The innocent before
What happened before Facebook? You were in a relationship, you had a good time, you hung out with your friends, you hung out - necessarily - with her friends, you thought you were playing on 'Friends' so cool that you were all together and at worst your girl fell in love with your best friend and from there you played on 'Friends', you turned it into Papakaliatis.
Wait, how likely was it that she would like your best friend? The people and circumstances that could harm your relationship were extremely limited.
There was no inbox, there were no mutual friends, there was no 'Find me on Facebook', there were no old classmates who became overbearing and then there were school reunions out of nowhere.
If you were in danger from anyone, it would be an ex or a reject or someone you met at the disco and danced to 'In the Heat of the Night' or someone who bent down to pick up the things she dropped.
https://youtu.be/QnVkI1QV7hg
And stop crying and feeling defeated. It wasn't just the girls who broke up with you, you broke up with them too. But again, the reasons were more earthly and specific. You were bored or you knew someone outside or you were leaving for a master's degree in Utrecht. Simple, tangible things.
It's not that people didn't break up before Facebook. It's that relationships weren't constantly teased by third parties at all times.
And that means/guaranteed wear and tear. (I wonder too with my rhymes).
The culprit then
I don't know how many friends you have on Facebook. Let's say you have 200. I know very few people who have Facebook and less than 200 friends. Do the math. 200 you, 200 the girl, you're automatically in sync with 400 people.
Did you have 400 people watching your every move when you went out for food or coffee or drinks ten years ago? Not even the waiter paid attention to you.
And here we go again. Nobody has only 200 friends on Facebook.
The medium and especially the inbox option came to overturn the data in relationships, but also to create many new ones. If you focus only on under-30 couples, the chances that they met online are greater than knowing ten songs by Trypes or four by Diaphana Krina. And that does them no honor at all.
Beyond the serious and the funny, Facebook, besides being a work tool and a way to find old classmates (lol), came to fix a major social issue: the difficulty in communication and consequently the lack thereof.
Boys didn't stop talking to girls because they started 'hitting' on Facebook. The damage (for girls) has been done long before.
The easy solution and the easy dissolution
And they became snipers. Boys who in their free time flood girls' inboxes and look for a reason to talk. They will comment disgustingly on a photo she just uploaded, they will talk about fathers who are pastry chefs and fun and Gods and creatures, but if they are a little more determined to succeed, they will say something intelligent.
And then there's the flirting with your girl out of nowhere.
And who's your girlfriend? Nicholas Brody so he doesn't bend? (What? Did Nicholas Brody bend?). In the best case scenario, the flirtation the boys initiate will be abruptly cut short, but we're not analyzing the best case scenario here, dear.
Here we analyze countless acquaintances of mine who are in relationships, and if you open their Facebook messages, you'll cry on behalf of your partner.
The arguments that these are harmless and that 'flirting doesn't hurt' and 'you can't get cuckolded from a screen' are dismissed as flimsy. You can't get cuckolded from a screen, but at the same time you can fall in love from there. OK.
When TV started to bother us - after spending 5,000 hours of pure viewing - we revolutionized the world with 'Turn off the TV and live.' Now that Facebook is the safest way to forget that you're in a relationship 24/7, maybe it's time to focus less on 'friends' and more on your relationship?
Are we disagreeing again? AGAIN?
Okay, I imagine you're one of those people who doesn't get stressed at all when they forget Facebook is open on their computer.
Source: oneman.gr
