The breakup that never ends

How hard is it to stop obsessing about your ex when, after the break-up, he (or she) won’t go away? There he is, refusing to make eye contact at every staff meeting. Or there she is, three doors down in the dorm.

But for the vast youthful dating population who organize their relationships around social networking Web sites, the ex never goes away. Anyone who is fixated on an ex can find all manner of personal information--including whether the ex has moved on to someone else-- right there online, just a few clicks away.

So what happens when you can’t stop stalking your ex online?

When Andrea Odiorne's girlfriend, Courtney, left her for another woman, she obsessed over the happy new couple. Odiorne, a 30-year-old graduate student in Richmond, Va., obsessively mined a social networking site for information about her ex’s new girlfriend. “I was tortured,” she said.

If you cling to memories of former loves, social networking Web sites like MySpace and Friendster have made getting on with life more drawn out and painful than ever. More than 70 million people use these sites to create online profiles of themselves, posting flattering pictures, hobbies, and the state of their relationship “status.” Even if a couple didn’t meet online, there’s a decent chance both have online profiles, which they can use to keep tabs on each other.

After a nasty breakup it’s tempting to obsessively check those profiles. The one left behind--or the one who caused the breakup--can see if an ex’s relationship status has changed from single to “in a relationship,” if he’s moved to a different city or if she’s landed a new job. Online stalkers can even find profiles of the ones who have taken their places. Then they can invite all their friends to check out the profile of the ex’s new love and pile on the mockery.

Pepper Schwartz, the Seattle-based author of the book "Everything You Know About Love and Sex Is Wrong," says mining an ex’s profile kills the healing process. “It’s like picking at a sore,” she said. Schwartz instructs clients to avoid their exes, even if they have to drive miles out of their way not to pass their homes.

However, “the street where he lives is now in cyberspace,” Schwartz said. By heading down that cyber-street, she added, you find out what you don’t want to know, and feel guilty while you’re doing it.

Stalking on MySpace and Friendster opens old wounds. Lea Engle, a 26-year-old administrative assistant in Hyattsville, Md., traveled with her ex-boyfriend extensively and even lived with him during their two-year relationship. After it crumbled, Engle and her ex both began dating other people. Engle adored her new boyfriend but “stumbled” upon her ex’s profile one day and saw his status had changed to single again. “I felt like I had won the breakup,” she said.

But then a year after the breakup, Engle’s ex deleted her from his friends page. (Engle knew he’d ousted her because his profile disappeared from her own page.) She confronted him and a bitter online battle ensued. “It seemed really out of character and childish and spiteful” that he should banish her, she said. “I felt like we were breaking up again.”

Engle’s ex explained he was “cleaning house.” She blew off his explanation, saying, “Like having too many friends on your page really clutters your life.”

Three years ago, Odiorne didn’t have a MySpace profile. When she got dumped back then, she drove to her ex’s house, plopped on her porch and cried. Of course she did that only twice. With her next breakup, she wallowed daily by switching on her computer to visit painful memories of her ex. Odiorne’s ex and her new love posted adoring messages on each other’s MySpace pages, calling each other “hot.” Odiorne followed their exchanges like a soap opera. “I like to read them so I can feel miserable,” she said.

The couple got a dog and posted its pictures. (Odiorne doesn’t like animals, saying of her ex’s pets, “I hate those damn cats.”) Peering at the cutesy photos highlighted the fact that Odiorne was not only alone, but abandoned. “Look at how much happier they are without me,” she said.

Objects of their exes’ online obsessions can also have a tough time moving on. Cathy Clark, a 30-year-old single mother in Atlanta, dated a guy for only a month, but he sent her MySpace messages for weeks after the breakup, she said. He even admitted to checking her profile several times a day, just to look at Clark’s photo: a three-quarter profile in shadow.

Finally her new boyfriend suggested she delete the old one’s profile. According to Clark, five minutes after he was banished, the ex called. “Why did you do it?” he asked, his voice racked by sobs. Clark eventually restored the ex’s profile to appease him, but she rarely logs onto the site anymore. The only way to distance herself from her ex, she said, was to leave MySpace.

Even friendly breakups can turn ugly over the Internet. Keith Tiszenkel, a 24-year-old waiter in New York, counted his ex-girlfriend as a close friend. He started dating somebody else, though, and the two women began communicating through their Friendster profiles. Tiszenkel said his ex posted a thinly veiled message to the Upper East Sider who’d won him. Under the “Who I Want to Meet” section, she wrote, “Nobody who lives on the Upper East Side.” Before the bitter exchange, Tiszenkel sensed some hostility. “I expected something to go down,” he said, “but I didn’t know it would take the form of Friendster stalking.”

Some might argue that keeping tabs on former loves is harmless, and might even be a tool for reuniting someday. Friendster spokesman Jeff Roberto says exes can stay connected, check each other’s status occasionally and hook up again in a few years. “It’s kind of a common thing,” Roberto said.

People stop checking their exes’ profiles, Schwartz says, when they can’t stand the pain of looking anymore. Odiorne did eventually stop looking at her ex-girlfriend Courtney’s profile. She even dated again. Then the new love gave Odiorne her walking papers after six months. Odiorne says she wasn’t that into her most recent ex, but there's evidence she's still hung up on her. She says, “I’ve been checking her profile like crazy.”

E-mail: esf2109@columbia.edu