I recently overhead the following conversation at a coffee shop between two 20-something girls. (In New York City, the tables are so close together, it takes absolutely no effort to overhear a conversation.)

“I took myself off all the social networks. Facebook, My Space, everything.”

“What?! Why?” her friend says, obviously horrified.

“Because of an ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh I see. A crazy ex-boyfriend is stalking you. ”

“Oh no. He’s normal. I was the crazy one. I would follow all his updates. Figure out who he was dating. Where they were going. It was bad. Those social networks were making me crazy.”

Honestly, I totally understand where this chick is coming from.

I think if I was single and dating and some douche bag loser guy broke up with me, I’d have my friends take awesome glam photos of me with hot guy models and then post them on Facebook so I looked insanely happy and carefree.

I mean, who wouldn’t take the time to do that?!

When you’re married, you really just scroll through your ex-boyfriends’ profiles from time to time, checking to make sure they’re still destitute, living unhappily without you. But for some reason, they always seem to be doing just fine.

Of course, if you want to go a notch lower, you can always check out your friend’s ex-boyfriends. I recently did some detective work for a girlfriend of mine because we got curious about this guy we both knew, who she dated in the 90s.

And this friend of mine is not on Facebook. That’s troubling all on its own. I don’t know why some people think they can ignore the siren song of those lost camp friends and long forgotten former co-workers. They will eventually recruit you to the cult of Facebook and demand a status update.

But my friend is still holding out and I wanted to help her in her time of desperate need.

So I found her ex on Facebook, friended him and reported back with pertinent information from his profile… like he’s single, employed, living in his parent’s garage, addicted to clove cigarettes and still madly in love with her.

Ok I might have added a little creative flourish.

I can definitely confirm that he’s single and employed. All that other stuff is just a hunch.

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