And I say again… So? It’s not her job to shield this precious fragile shell of a man from the world. I’m sure they frequent the same bars and restaurants and whatnot, too–should she never go to any of them with her new boyfriend in case old boyfriend is there? Old boyfriend is the one with the problem; he’s the one who needs to change his behavior in order to avoid seeing things that cause him mental anguish. Slutty McHobag shouldn’t have to keep her shit on the DL just in case the ex might be reminded that he’s no longer the one with cooter access.
1.) I’ve never dumped someone and immediately started seeing someone else.
2.) I’ve never had a picture of me and an SO as my profile picture on any social networking site.
Swing and a miss.
NO I DON’T!!!
ETA:
Sure, you can *think *what she’s doing is tacky. You can also *think *the sky is a lovely paisley. You’re still wrong, and I’m still going to tell you you’re wrong.
False. I know plenty of guys who get butt hurt from a break up for fucking years. It’s ridiculous. And no, none of these men are my exes, they all seem to hop right back on the dating train with the quickness. So again: how long is his ex supposed to coddle him?
Further, we don’t know why they broke up. Maybe the OP’s an asshole. Maybe the OP cheated on her. Maybe she got tired of the OP being a whiny bitch. In all of these cases, none of us would blame her for moving on with her life as quickly as possible.
Maybe she’s a big ol giant cheating cunt. I accept that possibility (though I think it’s more likely she’s just a normal girl who is moving on with her life). Either way, the only variable the OP can control here is himself: block her, delete your old shit, stop taking her every action personally. In fact, I can damn near guarantee you didn’t even cross her mind when she posted that picture.
Just block her and move on with your life. Once you block her, she effectively disappears from Facebook for you. Her comments on anyone’s status will be invisible to you, and her Facebook profile will not show up in anyone else’s friends list or in searches. Any tags you have for her on your photos turn into plaintext instead of links. You are basically deleting her from Facebook as far as your account is concerned.
I do Facebook, but it’s more for light socializing, PM-ing, making witty comments on my page, etc… Nothing about my personal life goes on there. Hell, at least half of my “friends” are people I barely know or haven’t seen in years. They don’t need to know the details of my life.
And I don’t understand people who post complaints about their SO, or what should be private family matters, or (at the other end of the spectrum) everything they eat for lunch every day, as if anybody cares.
To the OP, yeah, getting dumped sucks, there ya go. It sucks even more if you’re a whiny little bitch about it. The rules of Facebook are the same as real life: avoid all contact, get on with your life, and let time do its thing. Mainly you need to stop giving a fuck about what she’s doing, on Facebook or otherwise.
Edit: I just re-read your OP. Six years? Shit. OK, You’ve earned the right to mope a *little *bit over this breakup. But in the long run, I stick by my advice.
Yeah, “yours is wrong.” I find it telling that you haven’t commented on any of the *other *scenarios I’ve presented where the OP might stumble across the Probable Cheating Hobag and her new boytoy.
Good Riddance McSlutface isn’t shoving boyfriend #32,487 in the face of #32,486. *That *would be tacky. *This *is simply normal behavior; it’s only the fact that the OP has *chosen *to view the photo that it’s able to bother him at all.
I agree that he can *mope *all he wants. Hell, even if they’d only been going out for six weeks, he could mope for a year, if that’s what he wanted to do. He just shouldn’t be expecting his ex-girlfriend to structure her own life in such a way to avoid giving him any offense by in any way displaying that she may have found someone else.
Ooooh, you got me! :rolleyes: I didn’t comment on your other scenerios because they’re stupid. Especially the new boyfriend not coming over because OP might be looking in her windows. Come on.
Look, if you’re with someone for six years and dump them for someone else (i’m operating under that assumption, given the “immediate” descriptor the OP gave) it’s poor form to post a picture of you and the guy you left him for on a social medium as big as facebook very soon after the breakup. You disagree. Big f’n deal. Break-ups are sensitive times. When you do something like that you run the risk of some people thinking you lack a little class. Others might think it’s perfectly fine. There’s really no right or wrong answer here.
I think a lot of this really depends on how the OP is defining “immediate.” Like someone said upthread, if it’s a matter of a week or two, posting the pic is the equivelent of saying “hey everyone (some of which are probably mutual friends), look at the guy I dumped OP for!” In my opinion, that’s tacky as hell.
Exactly. “Come on.” *No one *is forcing the OP to look at this picture. He is only able to see it through his own choice–as if he went to her house and peered in the windows. She’s not sending it to him, she’s not posting to his profile with it. He is seeking it out. His problem. Not hers.
I agree completely. It’s all well and good to point out that the girlfriend has zero obligation to give a crap about the OP’s feelings, but she’d have to be an idiot not to realize what message her new couply Profile picture is sending to their mutual friends.
And I third (fourth?) the request for clarification of what “immediate” means. Anything less than a month would strike me as a deliberate attempt to send the message “look at me, everybody; it only took me three weeks to replace the guy I dated for 6 years!”
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. There are all kinds of things that people have a right to do, such as: stiff your waiter, be rude to strangers you encounter, wear white to a wedding, the list goes on and on. None of these things is against the law. All of these things show a distinct lack of class on the part of those who do them.
And all of these things involve *actively *being rude to another person. The OP’s ex-gf changing her Facebook photo ONLY AFFECTS HIM IF HE SEEKS OUT FURTHER CONTACT WITH HER. If he leaves her the hell alone, he will never see it. Honestly, why are you having such a hard time understanding this distinction? If you broke into my apartment and cut your finger on a knife I left in the sink, would you try to sue me, too? :rolleyes:
The OP may certainly choose to read old posts or messages by his ex-gf if he wants to wallow. But he is the only person responsible for any reactions he may have to what he sees there. The ex is under no obligation, even basic courtesy, to **CENSOR HER LIFE **to avoid offending her EX-BOYFRIEND with the knowledge that she’s seeing someone new.
Because it’s not just a matter of showing him the picture, which he can choose to look at or not to look at. The picture is out there for all of their mutual friends and possibly family members to see as well, which can end up being quite embarassing for him. If I dated a guy for 6 years, then got dumped for another woman and my ex changed his profile pic within a couple weeks to one of him and the whore he dumped me for, essentially advertising what happened to the entire world, people would think it was in bad taste. Because it is.
You’re like a pit bull with a bone on this one. Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree. This is apparently one of those times.
I’ll agree that we disagree. However, I’ll also maintain that you’re an idiot. You’re free to think I’m a moron for thinking you’re an idiot, but you’ll be wrong about that, too. Presumably, however, you care for my opinion of you as little as I care for yours of me, so we’re golden.
Etiquette, while of course subjective, is about courtesy. If one knows that there may be after-effects from one’s behaviour on Facebook (this post being written taking the OP’s “immediately” at face value), and one wants to be tactful, then the answer to the OP’s question resembles “what would be tactful and courteous behaviour in this circumstance”. Which is what I, and lezlers and others, are answering.
If you don’t think it’s a good idea to act with tact or courtesy, then that’s fine, but you shouldn’t really be commenting in a thread on etiquette.
And seeing your ex’s profile pic happens quite a bit - you don’t have to seek it out, it’s occasionally in your face by accident, even if you have been de-friended by them. And it can be very hurtful, especially if they’ve announced to their (and presumably mutual) friends “six years means nothing, here’s my new dude”. That’s why I advise dumpees to block the dumper - in case they’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to act with any tact, and doesn’t give a shit about the person they’ve dumped.
The question here is does the ex-relationship impose any sort of etiquette requirement on the ex? I would say no, in this case. It would be a breach of etiquette IMO to post something in your status about the breakup of the relationship, or say that your new guy is so much better than your ex. But posting the photo is not, IMO, acting without tact or courtesy since you have no expectation of that type of restriction on another person.
I think we agree on the general principles, but disagree on where to draw the line. If you accept that it’s OK to publish bits of your private life on Facebook then a relationship coming to an end doesn’t by itself impose any restrictions on what she posts as her profile pic. But etiquette standards in the age of Facebook are in flux right now, and time will tell on what society decides is kosher.
