When you think cheating boyfriend, what comes to mind? Talking to another girl on the phone, texting another girl and then the obvious hooking up with another girl. But what about cheating through Facebook with another girl? That usually isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but nowadays with the amount of technology used and the 400 million people on Facebook, this is becoming more and more common.
According to an article by Ian Kerner, a New York Times best-selling author and sexuality counselor, relationships are being ruined by Facebook and the emotional affairs it can cause. Not only can guys meet girls on it, but they can also reconnect with an old flame or ex, which can easily lead to re-igniting old feelings. Ian Kerner calls these “Facebook bombs,” which he defines as “blasts from the past that leave a relationship shattered to pieces.”
I think anyone who has been in a relationship before can agree that nothing good comes out of being in a lot of contact with an ex when you’re with someone else. Feelings you used to have may come back, making you feel nostalgic and quite frankly, making you feel like you live in a fantasy. People will tend to forget the bad parts of the past relationship and only remember the good.
Unlike trying to meet with someone in person, Facebook is instant gratification and can quickly go from innocently chatting with an old friend, to sharing information with her that they don’t even tell their significant other, to fantasizing about her in sexual ways. Kerner explained, “it often just happens, usually as a friendly relationship snowballs into something more meaningful.” He stated that it can even be more powerful than Internet porn.
An Illinois student and friend of mine, whose name I will keep anonymous, discovered her boyfriend was contacting random girls, past hookups and ex girlfriends one day when he left his Facebook account up on his computer. They had been together 3 years and she found messages from 2 years back of her boyfriend having pretty inappropriate conversations with other girls. She said, “the idiot didn’t even think to delete them.”
Although Facebook is a fun way to connect with friends and family, emotional affairs are becoming more prevalent in today’s society. Another article from CNN stated that “81% of divorce attorneys have seen an increase in the number of cases using social networking evidence during the past 5 years.” As Kerner so perfectly puts it, relationships have a new enemy. Looks like his phone isn’t the only thing you’ll have to be checking from now on.