Lover of Women, Conquerer of Nations. Technological obstacles to breaking up

by Bobby McMahon, senior writer

Due to advances in technology and communications, breaking up with your young loves has grown increasingly more complicated in today’s collegiate society. While the lack of high-speed communications enabled the simple “We need to part ways. Done.” breakups of past eras to flourish, the entanglements and machinations of our day create more linkages between two people, making breakups much lengthier if not more difficult.  What follows is the process that John University Student must undertake to break up and separate from his girlfriend of eight months, whom will be called “Jolene.”

After the firm but caring “We need to see other people” instant message, John’s first step is to remove Jolene from the “Sweetie Pie” group on his buddy list and add her to the more general “college folks”category, placing her near the bottom between his freshman year suitemate (who has since dropped out to work at a Tastee-Freeze) and his lab partner from sophomore physics class. Next, John moves to his Facebook account, where he must remove Jolene from his profile by changing his status from “in a relationship” to “single/friendship/random play.” While on Facebook, he should also change his picture to remove any semblance of his ex-girlfriend, discarding a picture of him and Jolene when she wasn’t sleeping with an entire wing of Hanson and replacing it with a picture of John eating a steak (Jolene is a vegetarian, a lifestyle choice that John to this day cannot understand.  John thinks that if God didn’t want us to eat cows, He wouldn’t have made them so tasty). Finally, John removes his membership in the “Jolene is Cool” club, because he frankly cannot stomach her infidelity and her penchant for thievery, especially when she steals entire cases of Natty from Food Lion and then blames John for it (John spent a weekend in jail for that, and still does not think it’s funny). With that job done, John moves on to the “we broke up” mass email. 

John must now access his Webmail account and send a mass email to all his friends telling them that he and Jolene have amicably split, there will be no hard feelings and it was a good thing for both of them. John then logs on to his blog, where he rants at length (almost eight  pages) about the breakup not being amicable and the cruel and deceptive nature of Jolene the Cheatin’ Queen, a woman who coincidentally should be buried in a Y-shaped coffin. After three hours spent ranting on his blog, John finishes the task of girlfriend deletion on his Webshots page, where he must change all the picture names and captions to match their new non-intimate relationship.  For example, John changes the caption “me and my girl” to the more appropriate “me and Jolene, when we were happy, and she wasn’t training for the whore-lympics.”

John has no desire to do this, but Jolene has forced him to by rogering him every which way ‘til Sunday. She’s a succubus, a demon of the nether-world sent to destroy the hearts of men and philander with their friends, especially those friends who have a blue Mazda 3.  If she would only see the error of her ways and ask John to forgive her, John would take her back for the fifth time, but only if she promises never to be unfaithful again. Then again, Jolene could never see a good thing if it hit her upside the head, so John’s expectations are low. Plus, John is too good for her, and he just needs to see that in order to move on with his life. Because we live in a technologically advanced world, and Jolene is a no-good, two-timing, money-stealing tramp.

Bobby McMahon is a senior political science major, and thinks that Jolene should return John’s many phone calls and e-mails.