This post was submitted by Kareem

Most people who know me are fairly aware of my technological illiteracy. As my friends became fluent in Facebook culture, I struggled to understand the “trash” feature of my Gmail account. For me, computing formulas is the equivalent of solving climate change. My coworkers can easily agree that Excel and I haven’t been on speaking terms for several months now. In short: technology and I don’t get along and I’m fine with that.

Thankfully, I have come to understand the basics to certain programs. I can’t imagine utilizing any other search engine than Google. Similarly, I can’t fathom using any other online social media tool than Facebook. Home for Thanksgiving, my aunt, who tends to post upwards of forty posts (I am not exaggerating) on Twitter daily, and links them to Facebook, tried her best to persuade me to sign up. When it comes down to it, I just don’t care what Joe Lieberman has to say about this or that (online or otherwise) and I don’t care to know what everyone is doing at every moment of everyday. Send me an email or, like I’ve advocated in a previous post, call me on the phone. I waste enough time labeling my emails and accepting special requests on Facebook than to be Twittering about how I’m labeling my emails and accepting special requests.

The great thing about Facebook is that, while you are restricted to seeing only your friends’ information, posts, and pictures, they usually don’t adjust the privacy settings, letting you view pretty much any content of theirs you would like to indulge. Just one click and you can virtually keep up to track with all of your friends without even interacting with them directly. It is free, unlimited, online friend-on-friend espionage and it is fun.

But like when discussing the concept of cloning in Jurassic Park, just because we can (i.e. spy on our friends on Facebook), does that mean we should? No other time have I been more aware of this than recently. For the past several months I had been, for lack of a mutually agreed upon term, seeing someone. We saw each other fairly regularly each week. We went on dates, went dancing, made pancakes, and watched the Golden Girls while cuddling on the couch. To me, that sounded like dating, and to be honest, I was pretty excited about the prospect of finally meeting somebody who seemed sane and into me. What started as a summer fling continued, leisurely, into the fall, leading me to believe that this might be something. “Guy” met my twin brother, my friends, and invited me to his birthday dinner with his close friends. So far, so good.

Everything was going well, until after a date of noodles and tea, we headed out to a bar. Walking up, Guy stopped in his tracks. He turned away from me and said we couldn’t go inside. After a few minutes of prying, he pointed out that his ex’s moped was parked outside the bar. Things would be ‘uncomfortable.” I wondered, for a minute, if I should offer to leave, but quickly told myself to fuck off. This was my man, ex and awkwardness be damned. Instead, we ended up sipping manhattans in a basement bar across the street, as Guy moped around, watched Superwoman on TV, and texted his friends to come across the street and visit him. In sum: lame.

The weekend came around and Guy invited me to go see an old horror film in Maryland. While initially pissed that he introduced me as his “friend” to his old college friends, I quickly got over it by way of a beer and watching Count Orlok’s eerie shadow ascend the staircase to a live soundtrack. We rushed back into the city afterwards to meet up with friends at a dance party, where I attempted to pull off a last minute costume of young Fidel Castro, drank bourbon, and shook my ass all over the place. It was really fun, a lot of my friends were there, and we spent that night back at his place.

That night, before bed, tipsy and exhausted, I tried to gauge Guy’s prospects for what was going on between us. Were we together? Was he seeing someone else? (“Uhh,” was his distinct answer to the later question). He said we could talk about it the next day, when we were planning on hanging out. The next morning, Halloween, he woke me up as he left for work, dressed as a character from Star Wars. Standing in the chilly, rainy, early morning in front of his apartment, he leaned in to me, costume helmet tucked under one arm. For a kid who was once incredibly and unmeasurably obsessed with Star Wars, this was as wonderful as it got. Little did I know I was being dumped by a Clone Trooper.

A couple days went by, and I never heard from him. I knew he was busy working a couple jobs, so I brushed it off. By Friday, a week from when I had last seen him, I still had not heard from him. I should’ve assumed the worst, but being an optimist and with the fairly recent memory of a Clone Trooper’s kiss still on my lips, I texted Guy, the most reliable way of getting in touch with him. “Hey Guy,” I wrote, “I haven’t heard from you in a while. I hope I didn’t upset you (?). Hope all is well and let me know if you want to talk.” Or something like that. He texted back saying that I hadn’t upset him and apologized for not letting me know before he went “silent,” He said was going out of town to clear his head and that he’d love to talk and hang out when he got back.

How does any of this have to do with Facebook and computers? Several days passed and I never heard from Guy. After a week or so, I decided to check his Facebook page to see if Guy was still alive or if I really was just getting the cruel cold shoulder. I found my answer instantly: various pictures of Guy had been posted, wearing a shirt I had given him as a present, while he hung out in Chicago with his moped driving, shaggy haired ex. This was his trip to “clear his head.” In otherwords, he was going on vacation in hopes of forgetting me.

I was pretty upset for a while. Guy was goodlooking, smart, and charming, a trifecta hard to find in many guys. But he’s also a coward. He clearly lacked the basic human courtesy to let me know, after several months, that he wasn’t interested in me. I should’ve read the signs: his messy apartment (overflowing litter box), bag of trail mix for dinner, and focus on drinking. Guy barely had his life together and, unfortunately, I got caught up in his mess of an existence. The only thing that saved me was Facebook.

This post is really long and I apologize. I was initially nervous about writing this, wary of the repercussions or feelings of Guy. But fuck him, as a friend eloquently pointed out, he should’ve known that when he started dating a writer of a singles’ column. There are a lot of morals of the story here, but I’ll pick one, and Guy this is for you: open source online media is, in fact, open. In other words: accessible to the public. I wonder if that even crossed your mind when those pictures were posted. I should be angry at you, or at your ex, or, more importantly, that I lost a really awesome t-shirt.

But really, I’m just glad I got out when I did. A truly bad [Facebook] romance.

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