I Pit Smartphones!

The BBQ Pit
1

So here I am, looking at the massive number of photos I’ve posted to Facebook over the years. Given that a number of the more recent photos are of myself and my wife, I started tagging her and myself. I should mention that we have been married for not quite two months.

Then I came to a photo WHICH I POSTED TO FACEBOOK MORE THAN A YEAR BEFORE I MET MY WIFE, of me and my girlfriend from 1989, when I was 23 (I’m 50 now). I tagged myself, and then tried to tag my ex-girlfriend. I typed my ex’s first and last (maiden) name, and Facebook decided to autocomplete and label my ex "Firstname + Middlename-which-was-actually-her-last-name + the last name of some random person. Or, to make that more clear, my girlfriend from 1989 was named, let’s say, “Jane Doe”. So I typed “Jane Doe” and Facebook autocompleted that to “Jane Doe Smith”, because there is apparently a “Jane Doe Smith” out there.

And since I didn’t want Jane Doe Smith to wonder why the hell I was tagging her (because I don’t know any Jane Doe Smith), I said, “fuck it” and just deleted the photo from Facebook.

And that’s when my new wife came upstairs, shoving her smartphone in my face.

It seems that my tagging activity (which included tagging both myself and my wife) alerted her smartphone … and she spotted my attempts to tag that old photo.

This happened like six seconds after I deleted the photo.

So she’s shoving her phone at me, with that photo, and the original caption, “Me and Jane, the love of my life”

sigh There’s a reason I didn’t type a period at the end of that last sentence: That’s all her phone showed her. I had to take her phone from her and (since I don’t use a smartphone myself) figure out how to scroll down, so that she could see the whole comment, specifically the end of the sentence: “… at the time.” And “at the time” was 1989.

2

I love smartphones, but I definitely see your point. I have to jump through hoops of flamin’ fire to disable random garbage like “so-and-so posted in this group” and “so-and-so wants you to play Candy Mafia Soda Farm Family Saga with them”. Otherwise, my phone’s vibrating for all sorts of that shit all throughout every day.

3

Seems like your problem is with Facebook, not smartphones.

4

Or with your wife. :wink:

5

Yep. Once the iWife7s is released, you want have to worry about that shit!

6

What Telemark said. You’re pointing fingers at an inanimate, non-sentient object when in fact it was an animate, sentient object that dialed it up to 11.

7

I’m not sure “…at the time” improves the caption as much as you think it does.

8

Good point! Especially since it wasn’t something he wrote “at the time”, but that very night (if I understand the narrative correctly).

9

I’ve seen (and experienced) this lately. A couple in the same house, maybe even the same room, interacting indirectly via social media.

I comment on my gf’s Facebook status and she, sitting near me on the couch, chuckles.

10

Tbh, even if it was written then, seeing any previous ex listed as “the love of my life”, especially if they were tagging her in it that day, could be upsetting to a new wife. The “at the time bit” could make her feel only marginally better if at all, if it already bothered her.

Even when you acknowledge that your current love has “a past”, no one wants to really know that there once was a love of his life, (which is the love of his love no more).

11

I guess what I’m trying to say is-

Do I really want to be reminded of my new husband’s past “love of life”

and

Do I really want to know that being a “love of his life” is a temporary condition…

12

If I understand the story correctly, he posted that she had been the love of his life more than a year before he met his current wife. All he did was tag the photo (why now?) which bumped it up on his feed.

I agree that was an unfortunate message for her to read, but much less bad than if he’d just posted that. But I also agree that this has nada to do with smartphones, and everything to do with Facebook and the two of them.

13

Netiquette wise, I think it’s poor form to tag someone without their knowledge/approval, right?

Years ago I checked in at a bar, and mentioned I was with a friend, Dan. Later Dan told me I shouldn’t have done that. His wife thought he was at work, and there were problems.

14

First, like others said, I don’t see smart phones as the issue here, it seems maybe a bit of fault could be put on Facebook, but most of it goes to operator error with a little bit left to overreaction from the wife. Yes, she overreacted, but I can’t blame her too much when she sees someone labeling an old photograph like that. I don’t know the dynamics of your relationship, but I know that it’s not uncommon for someone to feel as though either their partner isn’t completely over an ex or is comparing him or her to that ex. Yes, it may have been 27 years ago, but that may be that much worse depending on any number of circumstances that could be involved in the nature of your relationship.

Second, never NEVER go around tagging exes in old photos. Hell, generally not a good idea to tag anyone in an old photo except maybe old family photos. If you’re not in contact with that person and you tag them, it shows up in their feed. Not only might they find it creepy that you’re tagging them after so long, especially if you haven’t been in contact, but it could easily trigger that same kind of issue for that person and whoever they might have in their life. For instance, how would you feel if you saw a picture of your wife from 25-30 years ago just show up tagged with her being the lover of some other guy’s life? Maybe your relationship is nearly perfect and it doesn’t bother you at all (which, frankly, seems unlikely), but can you be so sure that someone you haven’t been in contact with isn’t in a rocky spot or feeling down or who knows what kind of reaction it might spark in someone you broke up with so long ago.

15

Did you bone her yet?

16

Too soon!

17

Most Community Colleges offer classes on how to use your telephone, maybe check one out.

18

:smack:

19

So it’s a picture from 1989 of someone you broke up with 20+ years ago, which means it would be an actual photograph that you had to deliberately scan and upload to a computer/phone so you could post it on Facebook in the first place.

I just don’t get why you’d would go through the trouble for a girl who stopped being the love of your life around 25 years ago.

I don’t understand why you’d even want such a thing, unless you and Jane were still friends. But then you’d just tag it “me and Jane Doe in 1989-nice mall hair!” without the “love of my life at the time” nonsense.

Sorry, I can’t blame phones or Facebook for this one.

20

Yeah- I’m just saying that the reading the rest of the caption doesn’t improve matters a whole lot. He made it sound as if she had only seen the the whole caption initially all would have been hunky dory.