Today’s technological advances make the already complicated territory of dating war games a minefield of miscommunication. Do I text? Do I email? Do I message via Facebook? If technology has complicated a once straightforward process, imagine what it’s done to one of the most intricate and complex of rituals: breaking up.

Because after two decide to pair up, the virtual interdependence starts and grows exponentially, organically, without one even really noticing it – until the relationship ends. And that is where the cyber nightmare begins.

As recently as 2002, getting rid of “ex ephemera” was relatively easy. The broken hearted could sift through tangible memorabilia such as photos, cards and CDs and toss them all into a box for safekeeping or even throw them out. But a mere seven years later, forget it – it is just not that simple anymore.

When I parted ways with my Ex, I didn’t just move to a different city, I traversed an ocean. But thousands of miles and a new continent don’t mean anything when your Ex’s name and activities can be seen and followed online without even trying.

So in the age of technology, how do you let go? How do you move on, when your Ex is virtually everywhere?


Transatlantic distance

My Ex and I were extremely cyber connected in the course of our three-year relationship: Gmail chat, Twitter, Flickr, shared items on Google Reader, Facebook, YouTube, links on our blogs and, finally, Skype.

As a result, our relationship became an intricate, tangled web of virtual cables that needed to be undone. But, as I would learn, they could only be disconnected slowly and painfully, and sometimes with lots of shock since most of the wires were still live.

My first foray into untangling (I was not yet into cutting) some of the wires was email. I asked early on in our “mutual” breakup that we keep email to a bare minimum, just for emergencies. Yet, three months into our post-breakup relationship, I wondered, ‘why is he still emailing me even though I’m not responding?’

 1 2 3 4 Next >