I used to say I would never date a guy who had a Facebook account. There was just something that bothered me about picturing my boyfriend updating his status and being hype about followers that wasn’t very grown up or masculine to me. But that’s my issue, I’m sure there are plenty of mature men who can balance taking care of business with filling in the gaps of their day with Facebook. Women are no longer arguing with their man about staring at the waitress a little too long but they are quick to trip over what another girl wrote on his wall. I think people are blaming “The Book” for the demise of their relationships because it’s easier than blaming your boo. But the truth is, guns don’t kill people and Facebook doesn’t break up relationships. Chances are if you have a trifling man, all social networking is doing is giving him a digital platform to be disrespectful.
Constantly posting the rundown of your relationship on a social network takes a lot of security and confidence in your situation that many couples don’t have. A lot of time we sabotage ourselves. Every girl that tweets your man isn’t automatically a threat to your relationship and just because he liked that selfie of his high school sweetheart doesn’t mean he’s secretly trying to break her off. If you have trust issues, they’re going to be a problem in your relationship whether you’re threatened by the girl that walks by on the street or the girl who likes all of his statuses.
I have no idea why we women like to torture ourselves by snooping, spying and taking every interaction our men have with the opposite sex as some kind of inclination that he’ll be unfaithful. If you have trust issues you will always find what you’re looking because you’ve convinced yourself there is something to find. The happiest relationship I was ever in was one where we both agreed that cell phones, e-mail accounts and social network accounts were off limits. Trust, if your man is cheating as my mother always says, “What’s done in the dark will always come to the light.”
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram basically take a microscope to your relationship and project it onto a flat screen for your whole social circle to see, judge and overanalyze. During a chat about a certain celebrities’ Twitter boos’ subtweets, a message board buddy of mine brought up a very good point, “Social media doesn’t ruin relationships, people do. Social media just gives them a platform to do what they’ve been doing anyway.” Now I’m usually that person who’s quick to call Facebook the devil, but the truth is if you have a good man, the odds are that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aren’t going to change that. So many women invest so much energy into checking their man’s pages when what they really need to be doing is checking their disrespectful dudes.
Social networking has slowly turned all of us into Ms. Pearl off of “227.” We all know that social networks leave a whole lot of room for assumptions and misunderstandings. People are so quick to make connections that sometimes don’t exist. Every song lyric, quote or vague update isn’t some implicit comment on ups and downs of a relationship.
You don’t have to choose between your social profile and being happy in your relationship as long as certain boundaries are set from the get go. If Twitter and Instagram are vital to your existence, keep your social circles separate on-line. There’s no need to friend or follow your man on-line, if you get enough of him in-the-flesh. If you are already connected on-line, don’t be quick to overreact to every comment and talk to him about the things that bother you before you get all internet gangsta. The old proverb applies whenever I witness drama taking place on my friends’ pages: Never argue with fools because through a DSL connection your followers can’t tell who is who. Be honest with yourself about what you can handle. Don’t front like you’re the cool girlfriend who is cool with your man having thousands of girls as friends, and then go on a sub-tweeting spree and start sending Rihanna-esque shade via Instagram when you get offended by his on-line activities. Lastly, stop inviting thirst into your bedroom. I understand the overwhelming want to tell the world when you land the man of your dreams, but if you’re putting up pics of him drenched in sweat at the gym and talking about how he put it down last night, you can’t be surprised when one of your Twitter follower tries to hit him up. It’s not that deep folks. If you and your man can’t make it through the “Why does your relationship status still say ‘Single’ argument, there is no way your relationship is going to survive when things get real. Stop blaming your internet connection for problems that existed long before you logged on.
Toya Sharee is a community health educator and parenting education coordinator who has a passion for helping young women build their self-esteem and make well-informed choices about their sexual health. She also advocates for women’s reproductive rights and blogs about everything from beauty to love and relationships. Follow her on Twitter @TheTrueTSharee or visit her blog, Bullets and Blessings.
