Dear Dategirl,
My man’s ex is always leaving flirty messages on his Facebook wall. She’s ugly, so I’m not that worried, but I think it’s disrespectful. She posts pictures of them together (from the past), inside jokes, and winking-face emoticons. He says I’m overreacting and that they’re friends. I think this ho has to go. Who’s right?
—Fuck Facebook
Why are you sitting around writing advice columnists when you should be out cracking skulls! How dare this leg-humping fugbucket post all over your man’s wall? Who does this bee-yotch think she is?
Heh. OK, time for true confessions. At first glance, I scoffed at your note and wondered how old you might be. After all, how immature. Facebook flirting—pfffft. Then I had a flashback to last week, when I stomped over to the phone and called my boyfriend at work to ask who in the hell this “Angela” bitch was and why was she smearing pussy juice all over his page? So much for a few seconds of feeling superior.
The sad truth is, Facebook has turned us into a nation of imbeciles. Pre-FB, we knew that our other halves had lives outside of the ones they shared with us. We knew there was probably flirting, but we didn’t dwell on it, because (hopefully) we never had to witness it. What was once said in passing over the watercooler is now left on someone’s “wall” for eternity. Or at least until enough Farmville requests clog up his page and it disappears.
So, yeah, he’s right: You probably are overreacting. At the same time, he probably wouldn’t be too happy if the situation were reversed. There is also the fact that Facebook has facilitated a shit-ton of affairs. According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Mark Zuckerberg’s invention is responsible for approximately 20 percent of divorces. So while you shouldn’t be on the warpath, you are somewhat justified in your concern, and he needs to respect that.
So the two of you need to sit down and have a calm, rational talk on the topic, and—in direct contradiction to the head-cracking remark I made earlier—he needs to be the one to deal with her. First, the inside jokes have to stop. If she can’t share their chuckles with the rest of the Facebook class, she shouldn’t be leaving them there for all to see and wonder about. They’re probably not that funny anyway. Though I can see why they annoy you—the winky-face emoticons are unfortunately ubiquitous these days. I have friends who use them, and trust me, they’re not flirting with me.
As long as you’re not the kind of broad who gets angry and suspicious about every person in his life who pees through hair, he should see the light. Especially when you couch it in cool, nonconfrontational language. He can go a long way toward defusing the situation by shutting her down, even with a lighthearted “Quit flirting!” reply. As for my situation, I’m going to wait and see if Angela remains a yowling, ass-in-the-air cat in heat before I bring it up again. And if she doesn’t stop—well, perhaps I’ll just e-mail her this column.
