How do you break ties? Breaking up, does it mean keeping off social network?
You may have thought the worst was over when you two said your goodbyes, in this error of social media; the breakup talk is often just the beginning. Walking over a relationship requires time, but most importantly a lot of space is required. So when your former spark doesn’t stop stocking your social feed be it Facebook or intsagram from twitter to blogspot well getting the “time off distance” you need can be a serious challenge.
Talking to Caroline <304> during the Masaku sevens after undergoing a recent breakup, the Machakos native had a rough time when her ex’s face appeared up on her phone during scrolling sessions on her homepage. While seeing his breath taking pictures of him posted on Instagram and twitter she couldn’t resist but check out for more and more. She couldn’t have enough of them; she stalked him for a few hours and sat there staring at her phone as she watched him chat up girls on Twitter that really made it hard for her to move on.
See there is a reason for everything. When you see you’re ex flirt online, we’re often having our suspicions that they’re into someone new. Recently Facebook has released information showing that most young teenagers who are single are into each other are publicly engage with one another online compared to people who are in stable relationships. When you see you’re ex sharing funny #TBT’s on a new girl’s wall that is when your heart sinks,
Simply because you’re not so into someone doesn’t mean that a social slight won’t hurt. Tamaris 18 spent a holiday going out with her boyfriend until recently when they called things off before heading back to school. less than a month passed before he announced via Face book that he had a new catch with photos of both of them cuddling around and goofing all over Facebook.
“My biggest problem,” Damaris <404> says, “was that he had the guts to post their relationship status with a series of photos of them together without even informing me who does that? I mean” matters worse fact that he wasn’t courageous enough to face the situation in person ultimately ruined their friendship.
There’s no right way to handle a social media split, but the truth is this: If you’re still feeling the burn of your breakup, it’s probably too soon for you guys to be connected in any way. Breaking up means you’re choosing not be actively involved in one another’s lives anymore, and as real life and digital life continue to converge, seeing someone on chat can be annoying.
What’s the best line of defense then? Even if it’s just for the time being, in following your ex across social media platforms is a good place to start. That old phrase “out of sight, out of mind” is particularly applicable when it comes to trying to get over someone—splitting up is hard enough, but seeing someone’s new life without you can be torturous. It’s also important to keep in mind that you’re not really seeing the complete picture of this person when you catch glimpses on Facebook. Social media tends to surface the best parts of our lives—the awesome party we went to, the great meal we ate, cute pics we took together, big achievements. When you see someone you once loved digitally sharing a particularly shining moment, it’s easy to forget that what you’re seeing is only a small corner of their life.
Some exes don’t respond well to being unfollowed or blocked, no matter what measures you take to explain that you need some space. 20 year old Nimmo and her boyfriend broke things off, she immediately removed his social presence from her life, calling it “extremely essential to the healing process—I didn’t want to be randomly reminded of him or unwillingly know what he was up to.” Even though she knew she was doing the right thing for herself, he criticized her move to digitally silence him. Martha, 17, from Moi girls Cabbz, experienced a similar backlash when she and her ex split. “He was really offended,” she says of her choice to delete a photo of him from her 
Facebook.
Unfortunately, those kinds of reactions are part of the course, but 19 year old June puts it best: “Some people say that it’s immature to inflow people, but it’s good….the heart is not soo smart often times”
By Muthoni Wachira
