To Delete or Not to Delete?
Should couples delete their social-networking site profiles when they start dating? Does this help or hurt a relationship?
I have been wanting to blog about something that has been really gnawing at me for the past few days...I want to know (in your opinion) if deleting a profile on a social-networking site or having access to your partner's page helps or hurts a relationship. A female coworker and I cornered a male coworker of ours last week and grilled him about a few things, including deleting his MySpace and Facebook profiles...We'll start out with some background:
So, this guy is kind of a "ladies man," he's attractive, fit, intelligent, and has a good career. He has dated tons of women and his friends call him a "90-day wonder" because majority of his relationships don't last beyond 3-months. He meets this woman, who by some accounts he met significantly prior to coming to work with us, she was married for over 10 years, has two children from that marriage, and is self-proclaimed "sassy." The two of them had been "talking," she left her husband, and apparently the two bickered back and forth over stupid things...then out of seemingly nowhere the two start exclusively dating and we notice that both his and her MySpace and Facebook accounts were deleted. When confronted...
He says that the two of them made the decision to delete their profiles, that they were considering creating one "together," or if they were separate each would have the other's login information. He says that since they deleted their accounts their relationship has "grown" and they fight less often. He claims he loves her and wants to be in this relationship for a while.
I stop him and proclaim that I must throw a "bullsh*t flag" on the play.
I stated that I believed the reason they deleted their profiles is because neither trusted the other. I told him, you can not go into a relationship not trusting your partner, he says I don't understand. He says that in the past he's left his profiles listed as "single" when he was seeing someone or had comments on his pages that were inappropriate when he was in a relationship.
I call another bullsh*t flag.
I tell him that was a state of mind, an attitude, an action...that if he wanted to change his casanova ways he could, without deleting his profile. I proclaimed that I'd never deleted an account because I started dating someone. If you're seeing someone and want to be faithful, then do that, but you don't have to delete your profile on social networking sites to be faithful.
I'm just wondering what other people think about whether or not you should delete your profile on MySpace or Facebook when you start dating someone...and whether or not you believe that this helps your relationship.
Personally, I don't think it does. I think it's a front and a cover because you don't trust your partner if you have to delete said profiles when you're seeing someone. I also don't think that you should need access to your partner's accounts whether social networking, email, or messenger. I may be somewhat old fashioned when it comes to certain things, (and wild on others, haha) but I believe that trust is a basic foundation of any relationship.
Discussion
I have been thinking about this recently. I think a couple that posts a joint page is going to end up spending a lot of time fighting about things. Who should be included as friends? What exactly do you post? How much of the friends stuff do you have to see?
I get irritated with people who tell others to shut up. Naturally it's more irritating when they're focused on married couples or moms. The thing is, I've seen some pretty inane postings from single people. Generally people who post a lot on Facebook start saying silly things.
Good ?'s! I hate "us" pages! The ones I've seen usually one party controls the "us" page, and generally it's the female.
I'm on board with BG911 on this. There are a lot of ways to keep any questionable comments or messages from appearing on social sites. Status changes can be made (not that it stops a lot of people from hitting on you), profiles can be made private and viewable by friends, comments and messages can have filters put in place on them (depending on the site), and I also don't believe in the "here are all my passwords and usernames/email addresses" type of relationship. Its not a matter of having something to hide, I just find it highly invasive and untrustworthy.
That being said, I've known of couples that have split up over one partner's insecurities and their constant checking on the other person's profile. One couple was my best friend's sister and her boyfriend/father of her 2 children. She didn't have his password but was constantly checking out his myspace profile to see if he was cheating. He has a number of female friends - not exes, not added friends, just plain ol' friends - and she would constantly question him about any and all messages or comments he got from them. Quite a few of them were old friends from school who no longer lived on the same island. he got sick of it and finally broke up with her.
For the guy and gal BG is talking about though, it is symbolic of what they are trying to attempt with each other, but its still kind of a "band-aid" mentality to me. Its kind of like putting duc-tape on a rust hole on your car...it might cover the hole but it doesn't really fix the underlying issue. Still, if its a first step into new territory then at least its some form of action....
OMG. Q, You say what I want to say better than I can.
My ex constantly looked at my MySpace profile and I used the aforementioned filters so that he couldn't see my friends or comments. He also read all the bulletins that I posted and everything. If I posted a status message he didn't understand, he would call or text me...it was ANNOYING! He created a Facebook profile and I was his ONLY contact on there, it was simply to keep an eye on me.
When he and I broke up, he told me, "you have passwords on everything!" And I did have passwords on my phone, my laptop, and he didn't have any of my login passwords. He gave me his login's, but I didn't want nor use them. I had passwords on everything because he fished for information constantly. He was very insecure and constantly accused me of cheating on him. Now, in the end, I did cheat on him. However, that occurred in the last 6 weeks of our 3-year relationship....there was basically 3 years of this s**t before I ever actually did anything.
In all actuality there were women hitting on him and men hitting on her on their respective pages, and the two fought about the who, what, when, and why of those people and their comments. Therefore, he says that getting rid of their pages eliminated that. He also changed his phone number at her request so that other women no longer had his number. So, for them, I do believe it was about trust. He says that both were still "playing the field" and that getting rid of their profiles stopped that.
Ah, hello? The two of them will get hit on in reality, not just online...how are they going to handle that? If you're exclusive, be exclusive. It's not like your facebook page is Yahoo! Personals.
If a guy asked me to remove mine...I would have to ask why and if it was because other men were trying to talk to me, I'd have to throw the bullshit flag.
I think if people are hitting on you, it makes sense to avoid the situations where they do that. You can't eliminate all temptation (and you can always go out looking for more), but you can cut back on it.
I think the two of them made a decision that makes sense for them. They were still messing around, and this is part of the way they are trying to stop. It also sends a signal to their friend/social network - we're not available.
That doesn't mean other couples have to do things the same way. This is all so new.
I think it depends. For this guy and his girlfriend, taking down their separate Facebook accounts is a symbol of their commitment to be exclusive. Making a joint page seems to be a step in becoming a couple for them. They don't see it as being about trust, so it isn't for them.
For you, if a guy asked you to take down your page, you would feel he didn't trust you. A joint page would be losing your identity.
