Dealing With The Ex On Social Media

It’s the case of the Ex. There’s always the test of how we deal with New Girlfie’s/Boyfie’s Ex, when we embark on a new relationship. While New Girlfie/Boyfie is there in the flesh, to talk to us and for us to talk back to them, there will always be Ex, at least for the first three months of the relationship, who we imagine New Boyfie/Girlfie is in contact with, whenever they pick up the phone.

In the pre-social media days, we knew very little about New Boyfie or Girlfie’s Ex. All we knew is their name and what they did. The little more that we knew about them, came in the form of snippets that New Girlfie or Boyfie told us. Occasionally we might be in a circle of friends and His or Her name cropped up, that we would crane our necks – wanting to hear everything possible about them and especially the reason as to why they broke up - because we only know the version of events as told by New Girlfie/Boyfie.

If Girlfie’s Ex lived in Naalya and I lived in Munyonyo, there is a good chance that our paths would never cross - unless I went out looking for him. It’s also possible that even if he were standing right in front of me, I would have no idea since I have not seen him in photographs, because as New Girlfie embarked on a new relationship

with me, photographs, cards, letters would have been tossed into a plastic bag and hidden away until such a time they get discarded and never to be seen again.

Today, it’s different. If we want, Ex is out there for us to look for ourselves. It can make everything plainer; we can judge for ourselves what Ex was really like and read his/her version of why they broke up. Because of social media, smart phones and search engines, we now have Ex’s everywhere – both our partners’ and our own. We can find New Girlfie’s/Boyfie’s Ex on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram along with everything we need to know about them. We convince ourselves by pretending we are not looking for them, but we really are and the last thing we want to see, are happy photographs of them from the days they dated.

(Chris Brown (Left) and Rihanna (Top Right) are examples of the Ex's who will always be in social media)

As TB, I don’t want to see them – especially Him, in Liquid Silk being the life and soul of the party; at Miss Uganda looking all smooth and dapper in black tie with his arm round her waist. I don’t want to see him looking all in love with her at Sipi Falls or white water rafting with him looking all macho and striking a pose that only Vladimir

Putin can pull off. I don’t want to Google him and find he’s far smarter than I am, and that he’s been out there and done it all.

I want the good old days – when there was no social media tempting me to ‘invite’ him home, into my living room, bedroom or have him ‘sitting’ next to me at work or in the taxi and double daring me to stalk him on Google, Facebook or Instagram.

Ultimately, we know that obsessing on New Girlfie/Boyfie’s Ex is a waste of life. However, if I feel the need to social media stalk Him, I can always log him out, smirk at him knowing his Ex, now my New Girlfie has moved on with me and that holiday photographs of New Girlfie with me will soon replace those of Her with Him – until such a

time that I too, get ditched and New Boyfie has to deal with me as immediate Ex and the other Ex.