living in the uplink age

So far 2010 has not been a stellar year of dating for many of my friends. Quite a few people I know have gone through break ups over the past few weeks, it has happened so often lately that I'm really wondering what is in the water.

One of the hardest things these days for everyone to get through is handling the split...in the social network medium. Everyone knows ending relationships are difficult enough as is. Now there is the damn facebook phenomenon.

Changing the status from in a relationship to single - the biggest stress because you wish you could kind of keep it under the radar. Does everyone need to know right away dammit? Sympathy for being single again is easier taken in sips than gulps.

Staying 'friends' or not? Do you cyber stalk to see if they are dating again? Or just hide their updates so you can be the good guy and try to bury your head in the sand?

Mutual friends who comment on the ex's updates. You can hide your ex but if your buddies keep in touch, you painfully do too.

And of course these are the tip of the iceberg, just the obvious problems. We are so connected now that our Internet wires cross over and under and just don't fade away. What do you do? De-friend them and get your best friends to do the same? Is that even morally acceptable?

Yes, somehow we as a culture have made breaking up harder. Argh.

As luck would have it you can find all kinds of other online arenas to mess with romance. Let's take for example...hmmm...if you start dating someone from say OK Cupid, Match, or Eharmony. You go out for just over a couple weeks and things seem to be going pretty well. Lots of laughs, plenty of chemistry, good times all around.

And then you notice that the person has changed their primary photo in their online profile within the past couple of days.

Ouch.

Yeah, you don't do that if you want to keep seeing the same person. Nope, I can't think of one scenario where you would.

Thank you, online dating, for keeping it real. Actually you have to admit it is better to find out sooner than later that someone isn't feeling the vibe. You can't say the guy did anything wrong, a couple of weeks a commitment does not make. But call me crazy - I am looking for a guy who meets me and wants to give dating me a chance, possibly even forget about keeping his options open.

So am I the kind of person that can just chill out and enjoy the moment? Can I just date for fun knowing there is a shelf life? I'm not really sure yet. It has been a while since I've been here. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.