News-Record.com

I was having trouble sleeping so I was wasting some time surfing the internet. I went to read some Yahoo! news and in so doing logged into an email account I forgot I had.

And there was an e-mail from friendster (another account I had forgotten about): a friend update on a long-ago ex boyfriend.

I can't say I had forgotten about his existence, but I definitely hadn't thought about it in a good while.

And this is the thing: he had removed me from his friends.

But he is the one who invited me to join friendster. I'm the one who broke up with him and had to keep telling him for weeks that I really meant it.

How dare he get over me! The gall.

His relationship status still says single, so it can't be because a new girlfriend made him do it. This wasn't his typical spineless obedience -- no, it was deliberate.

And it leaves me with all of these questions; How long has it beens since he un-friended me? What made him finally do it? What was he thinking when he actually clicked whatever it was he had to click?

And the big one: I broke up with him FOUR years ago; why do I care?

Social networking has been good to me and allowed me to get in touch with far flung friends from ages, jobs, and countries past. But "out of sight" is a lot harder to achieve nowadays, and so must too be "out of mind."

Has anybody else found that being over someone is a whole new ballgame now?

I think I had the same feelings I would have had if we had run into each other and he had dismissed me in person, but one of the beautiful things about 1,000-some miles of distance is that is never going to happen.

So please weigh in on A) the power the dumpee attains by finally getting over the dumper; or B) how surprising and protracted things can be, now that nothing really disappears online.