In a world full of social media, snooping, and jealously being the norm...

[oitnb]

How do you handle your relationship?

 

I've come to realize in today's day and age, constant snooping - wether it be on texts, Facebook, email ect - is considered normal and highly accepted. Especially with the younger generation.

 

Facebook / Instagram / twitter stalking is considered normal - constantly questioning your s/o about who's this girl and who's this person "liking" your pictures?! - is OK.

 

how do you handle your relationship in a time where such, IMO, immature and insecure behavior is considered the norm?

[LSgirl]

I don't know how people do it. I used to ask the same questions to my exes like "oh who is that you're talking to?" but that was in my early '20s. I'm 28, 29 soon, and I got rid of Facebook two years ago and feel great about it. I'll never go back on it again, although my pictures I would like to eventually save off from there. I've had Facebook for 9 years, and that's enough for me. To be honest, I did look up my current boyfriend's Facebook, but since I don't have an account, I was unable to read any information. I was relieved that all I could see was his profile photo. He doesn't have a relationship status indicated on there, but I never cared about that. I trust him, and I would never check his e-mails or phone. But if it ever came down to I had a real gut feeling that something was going on, I may try to do some digging.

[oitnb]

I agree - sometimes if you get that gut feeling, you should check things out. That's also because I think it's better to find out you're being played sooner rather than later.

 

But the snooping people take it to these days is extreme. A girl at my work was telling me how she always checks her boyfriend Facebook messages - and a girl had messaged him three times in a row asking to talk. He didn't respond.

 

So she stalked this girls profile - found out her address - and sent her a picture of it saying she will show up on her doorstep if she messages her boyfriend again.

 

I was in shock. Meanwhile all my coworkers were busy saying "you go girl" "id do the same thing hunny" ect. 0_o

[notalady]

I didn't think that's the norm, well at least I hope not. No one I know that are in relationships does that. Ok there is one couple where the girl checks the guy's email, Facebook, phone etc, they broke up several times and have a very unhealthy dynamic. But most people I know have no such problem, and you can't blame the technologies, it's the unhealthy mentality of these people that's the problem.

 

People at your work sound immature and insecure, and that is indeed shocking behaviour, especially messaging the girl, as you already pointed out. How old are they?

[LSgirl]

My co-worker (she's 34) did the same thing. She found out her boyfriend was talking to a girl he used to sleep with, but all innocent as that girl had a boyfriend, too, but my co-worker freaked out and messaged her from her boyfriend's home. My co-worker has access to his phone, e-mail, and Facebook. It's sad. They've only been dating 6 months. The boyfriend's friend asked him why his girlfriend was being crazy. My co-worker called her a bunch of names and told her to stop talking to him. I really felt embarassed for my co-worker. If I found out my bf was inappropriately talking to another girl, that would be his job to end their conversation, not my doing.

[panther]

Do you think this is the norm? Or are you making these conclusions based on what you read here?

 

Because among my friends, I never see such situations, my girlfriends never came to me complaining that their BF was interacting in a way they didin't like with some other woman. Well except for one friend of mine, and in the end the guy was really the cheating guy.

 

Here on ENA we read thousands of such stories, but people only come here when they are having problems anyway.

[Fudgie]

Social media, texting, technology, etc....those are all tools. They don't "make" someone jealous or ruin relationships. People do that all on their own with their own jealousies and insecurities. People who are already jealous/insecure just use these methods to snoop and such. I can promise you, if we didn't have phones/texting/Facebook and had to communicate by letters, these same people would still have the same issues in their relationships, just a different medium.

 

That being said, the only thing you can do is try to date people who aren't jealous/insecure.

[oitnb]

I didn't think that's the norm, well at least I hope not. No one I know that are in relationships does that. Ok there is one couple where the girl checks the guy's email, Facebook, phone etc, they broke up several times and have a very unhealthy dynamic. But most people I know have no such problem, and you can't blame the technologies, it's the unhealthy mentality of these people that's the problem.

 

People at your work sound immature and insecure, and that is indeed shocking behaviour, especially messaging the girl, as you already pointed out. How old are they?

 

That coworker was in her mid twenties. I'd say 25?

 

All my other coworkers are early thirties and up, surprisingly I'm one of the youngest ones there!

[oitnb]

Do you think this is the norm? Or are you making these conclusions based on what you read here?

 

Because among my friends, I never see such situations, my girlfriends never came to me complaining that their BF was interacting in a way they didin't like with some other woman. Well except for one friend of mine, and in the end the guy was really the cheating guy.

 

Here on ENA we read thousands of such stories, but people only come here when they are having problems anyway.

 

I think it's becoming the norm, yes.

 

I'm making these conclusions based on what I see. Most of the people in my generation (16-25) consider this normal and acceptable behavior. I don't.

[lavenderdove]

>>how do you handle your relationship in a time where such, IMO, immature and insecure behavior is considered the norm?

 

I don't do social media... i stay in close contact with people who are important to me, and don't blast all my personal details out to the world. I find most of that FB and twitter stuff totally narcissistic and annoying and a waste of time.

 

I also live my life in a way that for someone I love, i am an open book. By that i mean, i have nothing to hide, so i don't feel the need to protect anything about myself other than my bank account and financial information. I don't create one persona i present to my partner, and another one i present to other people, nor do i feel the need to hide what I'm up to because I'm not a liar or a cheater.

 

My personal opinion is that social media in many ways has given lots of people opportunities to cheat (hook up with people from their past or new people) and focuses on shallow attributes and narcissicm and creates paranoia in relationships. That is one reason I don't do it.

 

I will look at other people's pages if they want me to. And i will look at their page if i suspected someone was cheating on me (and had sufficient evidence to back that up), but otherwise i avoid it and don't have my own pages because I value my privacy and don't feel the need to blast every detail of my life and what I ate for breakfast out to the whole world.

 

btw, i do think if you are willing to go on FB, and willing to have all kinds of people looking at it, you can't be squeamish that they are doing so and forming impressions about what they see there, whether that is you flirting with some ex, or posting a really immodest photo of your bum or tatas for everyone out there to see (including your mother and your boss), spending a lot of time cultivating people of the opposite sex via flirty comments and 'likes' on FB etc. You have to take the heat because you are indeed putting it all out there for everyone to see. If you don't want a partner to see it, then don't friend exes or random people or use FB to flirt/connect with them. And you can't really be angry if someone sees something they don't like, because you are putting it out there, and you will indeed be judged by your actions and also what actions you allow other people to do on your page, and who you allow into that friend status.

 

So you play, you pay!

[Jean-Luc]

I agree - sometimes if you get that gut feeling, you should check things out. That's also because I think it's better to find out you're being played sooner rather than later.

 

But the snooping people take it to these days is extreme. A girl at my work was telling me how she always checks her boyfriend Facebook messages - and a girl had messaged him three times in a row asking to talk. He didn't respond.

 

So she stalked this girls profile - found out her address - and sent her a picture of it saying she will show up on her doorstep if she messages her boyfriend again.

 

I was in shock. Meanwhile all my coworkers were busy saying "you go girl" "id do the same thing hunny" ect. 0_o

 

I think looking people up on facebook and twitter is very normal nowadays even though it seems like most people won't admit it. However I think this is taking it way too far. That just seems kind of psycho crazy really and going extremely overboard and I would be in shock too.

 

The most I've done honestly is when I've had problems going up and speaking to girls in the past and a few of them I've messaged on facebook and 2 out of the 3 were receptive of it at first and the other one I never even talked to just saw around campus at college(more to it then that but it doesn't matter regardless) and she didn't respond to the first message so I made the mistake of messaging her a second time about a day later and she blocked me. I've also made the mistake of sending a few too many messages before and that usually killed any kind of anything that could have happened. My point is that what I've done is very meaningless and small especially compared to what some other people do on there nowadays and it seems to be making society a little worse off because of it.

[Seraphim]

My husband and I don't care about each other's social media and don't even look at it. We both could care less.