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twitter- is this normal/acceptable?


whitesand3

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Me and my boyfriend have been disagreeing on a topic that I wanted to get an outside prospective on.

 

Is is normal for people in a long term committed relationship to be interacting via twitter with random people of the opposite sex?

 

My boyfriend keeps on commenting back and forth with random girls on twitter and retweeting their photos. I have been finding this uncomfortable and have expressed this to him. To which he responded, "I am not doing anything wrong, this is the whole purpose of twitter, to interact with random people".

 

If these girls were his friends through university or work or elsewhere, I would not have a problem. I however, don't seem to comprehend why he believe it is okay to be interacting with random girls over social media like this.

 

Please be as brutally honest as possible, if I just need a reality check. Thank you :)

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I've never used Twitter, but from what I understand it is a place where random people interact.

 

I tweet something about global warming, say, and a random person tweets back and we get into some Twitter-y back and forth.

 

That said, I wonder what kind of content your bf is engaging in with these randoms. If it's just nonsense, or if it's thirst trap stuff—well, then I'd say you have a bf who likes using social media to court attention from the opposite sex.

 

Which is to say that issue isn't really the ethics of Twitter but the boundaries of what your bf feels should be acceptable inside a relationship.

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Seems unnecessary but I usually think a lot of things are unnecessary. Do you know why he does it? It might be a habit or an ego boost. Also now that you know he has these interactions and 'friends' and you have processed how it makes you feel, what are you going to do about it?

 

If I knew about those interactions in a partner it would be over. Just not my cup of tea. You have to know yourself.

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Not sure if anyone watched this, but last Friday, there was a documentary hosted by Diane Sawyer investigating how relationships, marriages, families including our children, are negatively impacted by the enormous amount of social media activity happening in today's society.

 

I was appalled! And not a whole hell of a lot appalls me typically.

 

Couples on line, texting, tweeting, instagramming, FBing (big one) while having dinner together, taking a stroll w their partner, interacting with their children! Etc etc etc.

 

One husband said his 18 year marriage is suffering big time, due to his wife having 1800 followers (random people) on Instagram, and no time for their marriage or children.

 

This was typical according to this documentary.

 

DS spoke with the kids who said they feel neglected and constantly vying for their mom's and/or dad's attention. Something, a small scrap, something!

 

Couples who admitted to having their relationships collapse due to one or both's social media activity.

 

Until watching this docu, I thought over-use might be limited to a limited amount of couples, those who post here, but it's becoming an epidemic, it's destroying relationships, marriages, families..

 

No imo what your bf is doing is not okay or appropriate when in a committed relationship. And if he wants your relationship to succeed, he needs to acknowledge this and take steps to end his addiction to it.

 

Which is what it is imo, an addiction.

 

Frankly I am beginning to wonder if anyone even knows how to be in close, intimate committed relationship anymore. What it means.

 

It seems many couples are more attached to their phones than to each other, or even their kids!

 

Sorry for the rant, social media is simply out of control, and I find that truly sad.

 

Watch the docu if you can, I'm not even exaggerrating.

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Oh, wait a second...

 

This is, I'm assuming, the model boyfriend who cheated on you in 2013? And who, before cheating, was in the understandably frustrating habit of following and liking "random girls" in order to "grow his page?" The same boyfriend who frustrated you when he popped up on Instagram next to a girl in bra?

 

In other words, what Twitter represents today is basically an extension of the relationship you've been in for six years now?

 

If so, this Twitter conversation is a moot point to avoid the real point, which I think is that you've spent six years in a relationship that doesn't work for you. If you want to use our comments about Twitter to extend that drama and stay in the delusion, that's cool, but I'll be respectfully bowing out of this one.

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Not sure if anyone watched this, but last Friday, there was a special on the tele -- Diane Sawyer investigated how relationships, marriages, families including our children, are negatively impacted by the enormous amount of social media activity happening in today's society.

 

I was going to watch it but then I saw that my gf tweeted about it and we spent the weekend fighting about Twitter.

 

(Sorry, had to...)

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For me it would depend on the context - my husband has a professional twitter account and I don't think he chats with anyone but I think people tweet to him? I would be fine if it was about work or a particular hobby and I would not be fine if flirtatious.

 

Here is an example -some weeks ago on my NextDoor site, a man posted about wanting to increase a group he'd formed where people meet to go walking and then grab coffee. I messaged him and said because of the timing that right now I could probably meet up for coffee with the group and hopefully in the future for the walks as well. I did mention I was married, etc. (I think he is single). He then messaged me more than once apparently ignoring that I'd written I could not meet up for walks and the message seemed to indicate that he wanted to meet up basically one on one for a walk -nothing inappropriate just got a spidey sense. I replied one more time with the same reply -about wanting to see if I could meet the group for coffee.

 

He then messaged me again recently -again same question about meeting up for a walk. This time I did not respond. No, I did not tell my husband -it's a nonevent, I took care of it - if it was headed in the wrong direction (which I am not sure it was). But yes, if I kept messaging with him that would be a bit inappropriate. It's not set in stone -you two have to decide what the boundaries are. In my marriage my initial messaging would not be an issue, but continuing might be. It would never occur to me to check my husband's tweets (I think I follow him and am not really active on Twitter), and it would never occur to him to see who seeks to connect with me on Linkedin or whether random men contact me on Facebook because he trusts me to act appropriately.

 

In your situation I likely wouldn't like it. But please talk to him and get some common understanding about what boundaries work for the two of you.

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Um, that was sarcasm. I’m not on Twitter or really active on social media.

 

Back in reality we spent the weekend in a cabin with no cell or internet service. Dramatic views, chill times.

 

I do agree with you that people are losing the ability to really connect. I’ve had tastes of it in my personal life, seen it with friends, and so on.

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Oh, wait a second...

 

This is, I'm assuming, the model boyfriend who cheated on you in 2013? And who, before cheating, was in the understandably frustrating habit of following and liking "random girls" in order to "grow his page?" The same boyfriend who frustrated you when he popped up on Instagram next to a girl in bra?

 

In other words, what Twitter represents today is basically an extension of the relationship you've been in for six years now?

 

If so, this Twitter conversation is a moot point to avoid the real point, which I think is that you've spent six years in a relationship that doesn't work for you. If you want to use our comments about Twitter to extend that drama and stay in the delusion, that's cool, but I'll be respectfully bowing out of this one.

 

Exactly.

 

Yes it's normal, normal for this guy who continues to flaunt his interactions with women in your face, normal for this guy who has cheated on you and told you more than once that he has lost feelings for you. You are the one choosing to be in a relationship with him while he walks all over you and your feelings... he has made it very clear that that's who he is, so stop policing him and questioning everything he does... either accept him for who he is or move on, as he clearly has no desire to change for you or anyone else in his life.

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Exactly.

 

Yes it's normal, normal for this guy who continues to flaunt his interactions with women in your face, normal for this guy who has cheated on you and told you more than once that he has lost feelings for you. You are the one choosing to be in a relationship with him while he walks all over you and your feelings... he has made it very clear that that's who he is, so stop policing him and questioning everything he does... either accept him for who he is or move on, as he clearly has no desire to change for you or anyone else in his life.

 

Amen.

 

For two years now you've been writing about this issue. Two years that you could have been living in a different way. Back then the reasoning was that you had a good two years, and that it's hard to leave a 4 year relationship. So I suppose today it's that it's hard to leave a 6 year relationship, one that was last good over 4 years ago.

 

Well, it'll only get harder, and worse—that's what this experiment has showed you. By my calculations you're something like 23, still so young. There's a future to be had in which you lay in bed with a guy you find hot, fully trusting him, and never talking about his social media habits.

 

That man will not be your current boyfriend, however, so it's your choice whether you want to keep fooling yourself or pull off the bandaid. It'll be hard for a bit, but even at its hardest it'll probably be better than the relationship you're in. And when that pain ends—well, you'll have space to discover what it feels like again to be in something that functions.

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