Refresh, repeat. Refresh, repeat. The social media post-breakup ritual that consumed my life.
Fast forward four months later and I had my first real boyfriend. Who would have thought my double date would turn into a relationship, I know my awkward fifteen year old self sure did not. I fell hard, he walked me to class every period of every day, never forgetting to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek before parting ways. I had even changed my facebook relationship status and profile picture to him. FBO (Facebook Official) was a big deal at the time. Validating your relationship and your man to all of the girls in school, the self pride you got out of seeing his name with the little heart under your profile. Ridiculously cheesy, ridiculously immature. Yet I felt such pride seeing his name next to mine as boyfriend, mandatory in the realm of high school gossip.
My day began with either a text from Kevin from the night before, he had probably been up late studying or a good morning text, one that I would respond to almost immediately. I slept with my phone under my pillow so that as soon as I woke up I would be able to roll over and check for any notifications from him. Then throughout my day there was constant communication, texting every second of every hour of every day. Even though he was five hours away I knew what he was doing at all times. Letting each other know if we went to class, the library, ate lunch, took a shower, hung out with friends, etc. There was not a part of our lives that the other wasn’t filled in on. That is, until it stopped.
It was my junior year of high school and I was as innocent as it came. Never had a real boyfriend, was too shy and awkward to talk to anyone, and filled with nerves whenever a boy looked my direction. One of my closest friends at the time had had enough of my introvert ways that she set me up on a double date with her, her boyfriend, and her boyfriends friend. The stalking commenced immediately. Looking him up on Facebook, checking his pictures, his relationship status, and his status updates. Before even meeting him formerly I had found out he was an identical twin, played soccer, had a younger sister, and a black lab. Not creepy at all right?
As the year came to an end my Taylor Swift Love Story boyfriend would be going off to college and leaving me behind to finish my senior year. Being the hopeless naive romantic that I was, I had no doubt that our relationship would be maintained despite the five hour distance between us. Kevin attended The University of Virginia, which is five hours away from our home town. I moved him in, kissed him goodbye, and went back home. This is when the digital age and social media took over my life. I knew that long distance would not be an easy task but I did not realize how much I would rely on my cellphone for EVERYTHING. Texting, calling, skyping, facetiming, snapchat, facebook messenger, and so many more outlets had become apart of my daily routine. I was living my life through the screen of my cellphone.
Refresh, repeat. Refresh, repeat. “This can’t be real” I kept telling myself as I scrolled through the profile of the girl who had posted the pictures. I searched through every inch of her profile, I felt like a detective being paid to find background on a suspect. I spent that whole night driving myself insane, staring at the picture, scrolling through her profile, through her friends, through Kevin’s. I felt like I was going crazy, I knew I could block them, I knew I could make sure that I would never see the pictures again but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I looked at who liked the picture, their mutual friends, how long they had known, each other, how long it had been going on. I was allowing this form of social media to take over my mind, my thoughts, and my well being. I had never been one for social media, I didn’t even really know how to use it to tell you the truth. I made my accounts to fit in with my friends and be connected with the inside jokes that came along with being digitally connected through these accounts. I made a Snapchat my senior year, I made the account partially so that me and Kevin would be able to snap pictures to each other throughout the day. If we were unable to skype or facetime it was nice to be able to see the others face. So as you can imagine, at this point in my life after finding out my boyfriend of almost two years had been cheating on me, I had gone a tad crazy. Not full blown Beyonce taking a bat to the hood of his car crazy but crazy nonetheless. I decided to check his snapchat, I had his account on my phone from the summer when he would login on my phone if his phone was dead. As soon as I hit login I regretted my decision. Name, after name, after name, the exact opposite of what any long distance girlfriend would want to see. Not to mention his best friends list being three girls that I had no clue who they were. As sad and pathetic as it sounds, snapchat gave me the reality check I so desperately needed. I quickly logged out of the account, throwing my phone onto my bed disgusted at what I had saw. I could not even believe how naive I had been, trusting, and caring. I realized that I had let an asshole walk all over me and I was surely not raised to be treated with anything other than respect. This began my blocking streak.
It was like a switch had flipped, I stopped getting that text in the morning, the text throughout my day, the goodnight text, I wasn’t really getting many texts at all. Then came the pictures on facebook, the awful, terrible, cheating pictures. There it came up on my newsfeed-- “Kevin has been tagged in a photo”, I went to click on it and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was my boyfriend, my Taylor Swift Love Story boyfriend, with another girl sitting on his lap kissing his cheek. Cue Beyonce’s Lemonade album.
Blocked on Facebook. Blocked on snapchat. Blocked on skype. Phone number blocked. I had officially blocked Kevin out of my life. I was torturing myself by using these different social medias to keep tabs on a person that did not deserve any of my energy. I was allowing myself to waste hours of my day trying to see what he was doing that I wasn’t living my life. From this very moment I told myself I would never let social media or another boy control my life the way I had allowed Kevin and Facebook to. I also had to recondition myself to use my phone less. To live in the moment rather than through a screen.
My first “love” cheating on me was the biggest blessing in disguise. As I have grown up in a digital society there haven’t been many times where I was able to step back and see the bigger picture away from the fake realm of social media. I had become one of the people that used digital literacy for all of the wrong reasons. I now maintain my use of social media but in a much healthier way, and never allow my cell phone to mandate any relationship I have. I still enjoy using all of the same apps but also make sure I am living my life in the moment, rather than through a screen.