When I was a child, my mother taught me a very important life lesson. At the age of 10, my first boyfriend bought me some chocolates for Valentines day. The next day, he broke up with me and asked for them back. At first I was outraged at his request, but when I told my mother, she advised me to give them all back and rise above it.
‘Never give a man a reason to dislike you after a breakup, always be the bigger person.’ Were her words.
That phrase has stuck with me since and I have never (save for the odd ‘miss you’ drunk text) done anything embarrassing or attention seeking to try and get an ex’s attention post breakup.
Over the years however, I have seen countless friends and acquaintances make complete and utter fools of themselves on the internet after a breakup.
Let me tell you one thing ladies & gentleman: if you think that shouting and screaming about your breakup online will make your other half want you back, it won’t. It will have them running for their hills and wiping their brows, thankful for the fact they are far, far, away from you.
- DON’T let the world know you’ve split up – I knew a girl that posted a status the evening her fiancé broke up with her, telling the world she was now a single pringle again after 6 years and wrote a long, heartfelt post on how upset and heartbroken she was. If you’re feeling like this, invest in a diary. You get the same cathartic feeling without the entire Facebook population knowing you have been dumped.
- DON’T upload ‘sly’ memes about your other half – memes such as ‘ you could have had this but you were window shopping’ or ‘you’ll never get something as good as this again’ are cringeworthy and NOT sly at all. They know you are talking about them.
- DON’T upload pictures with people of the opposite sex to try and make them jealous – it just screams you aren’t over it and want to make them jealous. In reality it will probably have the opposite effect.
- DON’T slate them on social media- again, I’ve seen an acquaintance do this with her ex, she dragged his name through the trash only to forget that she still had his family on Facebook who proceeded to tell her just how rude she was. Don’t.Do. It.
- DON’T obsessively stalk their page – and check who’s liking and commenting on their pictures, who’s tagging themselves in pictures with them, who they’re hanging out with. The reality of that action is you will create a million scenarios in your head of Hannah from his gym who keeps liking his pictures is now most probably shagging him, when in reality, there’s probably absolutely nothing going on there.
- DON’T delete every trace of them from your social media – it may seem cathartic at the time because you are so angry and upset, and it may be something that you eventually do, but try, if you can, to hold back from doing it the day you split up. Not only will it immediately attract attention to the fact you have split to everyone you know, but if you were to ever get back together, you can’t undo deleting all those pictures.
- Perhaps the one thing you should do, is block them – not forever, but for now. To give yourself a chance to move on, to stop obsessing, and stop worrying about who they are with and what they are doing. Cut them out completely and give yourself and your mind a chance to start afresh. In a few months, you will probably forget that this was even an issue, and you will have saved yourself hours of wasted time on social media.
To my delightful readers, what are your thoughts?
Giulia x
Good grief, I’m glad I dated and married pre-Facebook.😳
Author
I would give anything to have been born in an era before phones and internet where dating was much more simple!
We did have internet and phones back then. I’m not that old!
Well, dial-up internet. And, uh, phones were usually wired to a wall. And they were actually found in street phone booths and accepted coins. 🙂
Author
Don’t worry I’m not referring to you, just a time period I would have liked to be around in 🙂 I do remember dial up internet and phones wired to a wall too!!
I often think about all the photos we would have had for things that are just a fleeting memory that I can barely recollect. I don’t think we would have had as much fun!
Author
I would trade that any day to not have to deal with the dramas created on a daily basis by social media.. and the ease at which you can meet someone new/cheat because of the likes of Facebook and Instagram!
These are all absolutely awesome things to share with people! So often people get caught up in their emotions and don’t realize that what they are doing is actually hurting them in the long run
Author
Thank you 🙂 exactly, it may seem logical at the time but in reality it’s so detrimental!
Lucky you hadn’t eaten the chocolates
Great tips 😃
I did once Unfriend an ex, who made such a fuss about it to all our many mutual friends that I am now quite reluctant to be friends with any lovers on FB.
Author
That makes sense! If you’re not friends on FB it avoids heaps of other issues that can arise from it, so it’s probably a good thing in the long run 🙂
ALL true. It always surprises me how some people lose their heads on social media. Some things are better left unsaid… and that includes break-up news and passive-aggressive posts.
Author
You’ve summed it up perfectly.. something’s are definitely better left unsaid (or at least shared with friends in person rather than somewhere as public as FB)
Not good. I would have taken a bite out of each one and then given them back, rewrapped.😂
Or eaten them and barfed on his doorstep
Author
Haha that is exactly what I wanted to do!
I vehemently agree with this.
Author
Thanks! Glad you do 🙂
Love is war, as someone said. So must the pain go but in every direction like, war. We can accept the loss but still our mind wanders toward what if rather than, who cares?
Author
🙌🏻
Like the young medical students in Jags who ask their dates (often nurses) for petrol money.
I block immediately, like within the hour lol .
My ex and I tried to stay friends after I broke up with him, so I got to see some of the nasty posts he made about me before he blocked me. In all honesty, it comes across as pathetic.
He even sent me a snapchat after we ran into each other at a bar with him and 3-4 other females with a caption that read: ‘Seeing your ex and not calling her a slut.’ Ummm… okay dude. Whatever makes you feel better.
Author
That is so rude!! You’re definitely the better person to come out of that, and to be honest all it shows is that it hurt him a lot more than he’s letting on. Hope you are ok x
Great advise! So true about the passive aggressive too!
Author
Thanks! Glad you agree 🙂
There is an apocryphal story that goes something like this: When asked what she thought of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis allegedly replied “My mother told me if I had nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all,” and immediately fell silent.
In all seriousness, your post is reason #47 on why I refuse to get (back) onto social media. It’s silly, pathetic, and childish, and quite frankly I have no time for immature bullshit (I have enough of it already, thank you very much). I suppose it’s much more difficult to sneer at someone when there are other people around even though that’s the whole point. You want to make the other person feel bad, do it “safely”, and in full view of your peers, so social media accomplishes all of that at once. It’s public humiliation at its finest, but with less cutting wit and more just plain nastiness.
I must say your mother is a saint. I would’ve said “Whoops…you gave them to me and I ate them all. Sorry” in a voice that was anything but apologetic. *laughs* Good on her for it, regardless.
Agreed. My ex did most of those things and I was angry at first, but thankfully I didn’t retaliate.
Author
It’s always best not to retaliate!
I love this I had to share it to Facebook. It’s crazy how often people do this ! I know how emotions can run so I remove exes from my friend list and even if I’m in a relationship and I’m friends with a boyfriend I will just log all the way out so that I won’t be tempted to see anything upsetting if we get into a fight
Author
Thank you for sharing it to Facebook! Precisely.. i think you’re going about it in the right way! Out of sight out of mind 🙂
Oh my gosh! love this post. My friends just went through like a week long split and during that time… one of them did a black out on Facebook – where they put their profile and cover picture as black background. The other, who did the breaking up… kept posting how heartbroken she was. They are both 31/32 years old. Needless to say… I didn’t know break ups could turn people emo. I’m pretty thankful to be married. haha!
Author
haha that is very emo esque behaviour, it’s bizarre how breakups can affect people and make them behave in ways you wouldnt expect! Hopefully you will never experience such a thing 🙂 x
My unspoken facebook rule has always been never to change my relationship status in the first place. I have been “single” ever since I joined facebook in 2009 except on one crazy occassion when I was still slightly post late teens when I changed it into a “in a relationship”. I learnt my lesson and reverted to “single”.
This I find beneficial cuz for some of us you kiss many frogs before meeting that prince charming and until I have a ring on my finger will the relationship status change to “married”.
Sometimes when i’m going through a shitty phase in a relationship, I blog about it. My shitty relationship phases have inspired a lot of my relationship posts. I simply get an idea from my experience and transform it into an informative blog post without name mentions and being overly personal.
Great post Giulia.
Author
I totally get that.. you’ve got a good plan 🙂 Relationships ( especially rubbish ones) inspire alot of my posts too.. at least we can take some positives out of them!
Glad you enjoyed the post 🙂 Hope all is well with you!
People do tend to get nasty after a breakup. Some very good advice there. I agree, its best just to breakup in a nice way instead of lashing out.
Author
Thanks, glad you agree! Exactly – I feel in the long run it’s better to just be nice 🙂
Thumbs up for your wise Mama!
Author
Thank you 🙂