After a nasty breakup, it’s easy to hit that ‘de-friend’ button on Facebook. It was painful enough, and you really don’t need reminders that he or she is moving on. Nor do you need to see pictures of them or their emo status updates if you were the one doing the dumping.
However, it does happen that somewhere along the line, you might want to actually gain them back as a Facebook friend. While it’s pretty obvious how you would go about re-friending an ex, …

A Facebook de-friending from a recent ex may seem like a slap in the face, but it’s really quite healthy for both parties.
If you actually meant that line about still being friends, Facebook defriending may help you create the space you need to become comfortable on your new footing. You may refriend him the future, when time has passed and you’re both ready to reconnect; but until then, you don’t have to be reminded of him whenever you see his status updates. Also, you won’t have to read sickly-sweet wall …

There are good ways to get dumped, and there are bad ways to get dumped. Generally, getting dumped via e-mail falls somewhere between Face to face when I knew it was coming and text message from his new girlfriend. It’s not a good feeling when “You’ve got mail” becomes “You’ve been dumped,” but you can make the best of it.
Here are some ways to make the most of your reply:

Resist the urge to immediately forward the breakup e-mail to everyone in your address book, while texting and Tweeting …

There is no form of self-torture worse than looking at your ex’s wall. You wouldn’t pour salt on your own physical wound, yet you just can’t stop yourself from checking out what other women have posted on his wall. It is a strange sort of obsession: if you are miserable and lonely, you don’t want him to be happy, either. So you’re half-hoping that there’s no action on his wall. However, you also have a sick fascination with the comments he does receive from other women. You can judge these …

The act of breaking up with your significant other over email isn’t exactly regarded with the most enthusiasm nowadays. In fact, the breakup email is often seen as cowardly and even insulting, loaded with all the cold professionalism and biting brevity of a resignation letter. It’s as if the heartbroken recipient is a subscriber to a love newsletter, and you’ve decided to inform them that you’ll no longer be providing your service. That’s just extremely bad form, and who can blame the heartbroken for retaliating in some fashion or other?
Truth …

Breaking up is almost always awful. But if there’s one thing that’s worse than breaking up, it’s being forced to talk about it. In the dark ages, your parents and close friends were the only ones who felt comfortable pressing for details about an ugly split or crowing, “He wasn’t good enough for you anyway!” But in the age of social media and oversharing, your heartache is now everybody’s news.
Facebook’s “relationship status change” is among the most awkward of social media status alerts, and it’s not difficult to see why. …

Freeze! Don’t click that “post this entry” button. Slowly back away from the computer and take a deep breath. Think about the blog entry you’re about to publish — the one where you repeatedly mention the length (or lack thereof) of your ex-boyfriend’s manhood, or the one where you scold your ex-girlfriend for her frequent and timely headaches.
Maybe you want to get this bitterness out of your system, and truth be told, you may have many justifiable grievances. Perhaps he cheated on you with another woman, or she belittled you …

If love is a battlefield, then Facebook has become the Internet equivalent of the Cold War. Case in point: after the lengthy collapse of one of my previous relationships, I was shocked to find my ex-girlfriend’s relationship status changed to “single” within mere hours of our parting. I quickly responded in kind by updating my relationship status and sharing flirtatious comments on the walls of new, potential love interests, secretly hoping these playful posts would reach my ex the next time she scrolled through her news feed.
Thanks to the immediate …