Don't leave me this way..

[KiwiCoromandel]

From tequila texting to vitriolic blogs, the aftermath of a break-up can be more publicly humiliating than ever before, writes John Luu.....

When Sarah found out her boyfriend of two years had cheated on her while she was away on holiday, one of her first inclinations was to cut and run.

Like many women who experience bad break-ups, Sarah grabbed the photo albums and, as a way to cleanse the memories of a relationship gone bad, destroyed the pictures that depicted a happy life together.

Midway through this therapeutic exercise, a dilemma arose. What to do with the photos on her computer? Tearing up an ex-lover's photographs is a break-up scene many of us are familiar with but, at a time when digital photos are the standard, what happens when there are no paper photos to tear up?

It has been well documented how much easier it is to develop a relationship with someone in the digital age. There are many ways to court your significant other, through dating websites, text messages and emails.

But what happens when the relationship sours and it is time to call it quits? The dependence on technology in building a partnership means a modern break-up can get very messy - and sometimes very public.

"Breaking up with someone these days is a whole different ball game," says Samantha Brett of The Sydney Morning Herald's Sam and the City blog (http://www.blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/samandthecity) and author of Luv N Txt: The Secrets of Text Appeal. "The rise of technological devices has meant that it's harder to get rid of all those things that remind you of them."

Physically removing yourself from a relationship may be as simple as walking away but doing so digitally may prove more difficult. As relationships benefit from the assortment of ways people can communicate - on the phone, via email, SMS, instant messenger or social websites such as MySpace - the implication is that it may be harder to disconnect once it ends.

After Sarah moved out of the home she and her boyfriend had shared for a year, she went through her mobile phone and deleted all the sentimental text messages they had exchanged during the relationship (the modern equivalent to tearing up old love letters).

She made it clear she didn't want to speak to him again, yet he still tried to call her, send her emails and approach her on instant messenger. Each time the phone rang, she would dread finding out who was on the line.

"There are just so many means for people to contact you because they can get at you on email, MSN, SMS and on the phone," she says. "It's just a whole lot harder to make a clean break."

Screening calls after a break-up poses some challenges. However, the most dangerous person with a mobile phone in a break-up is often yourself.

"People often struggle after relationship break-ups when they are trying to move on," says Dr Lissa Johnson, a clinical psychologist who specialises in relationship issues. "Text messages make it very easy to get in contact with your ex-partner at 2am when you know you're not supposed to."

Contacting an ex under the influence has become a social phenomenon thanks to the mobile phone and text messaging. Sometimes known as "tequila texting", it's when an emotional situation mixed with alcohol and a mobile phone leads to a message regretted the morning after.

Vicki, 28, a commercial lawyer and repeat offender in sending drunken text messages, says that having a bit of Dutch courage in a relationship break-up isn't necessarily a bad thing. "It's your own guilty pleasure," she says. "Just for that moment you can say what you wouldn't have the balls to say in real life."

In a survey conducted by Virgin Mobile last year, nearly a third of respondents admitted to having called their exes while tipsy - the infamous drunk dial. In response to this trend (and as a marketing gimmick), Virgin Mobile launched a service where customers could elect to block themselves from dialling certain numbers until the next morning, when sober hands are holding the keypad.

It's not just unsolicited phone calls from exes that are of concern in the age of the internet. When a break-up goes bad, the worldwide web can add a whole new public dimension to messy splits.

Popular websites such as Don't Date Him Girl (http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com) allow angry women to tell the universe about their recent break-ups. In its own words, the website is an "online community of powerful women ... who choose to exercise their rights to free speech on the internet by boldly sharing their bad dating experiences with other women".

But beyond the camaraderie of the website, it is a vitriolic and unregulated space to slander men. The idea that women identify men who have done the dirty and broken their hearts so other women can post words of support ("What goes around comes around, he will get his!" reads one of the more printable messages) raises ethical and legal issues.

Icon recently spoke to "Henry", a Sydney real-estate agent who was unaware he had been featured on the website until we contacted him. The posting had accused the divorcee of being unfaithful and had labelled him an alcoholic. Not only does the website name and shame but it allows people to post unsubstantiated claims in an anonymous environment.

Henry's full name, photo (a portrait lifted from his company website), work phone number and email address had been published online, raising concerns among privacy advocates. Henry says he has suspicions about who may have posted his name on the website but says anyone with a grudge could easily defame him.

"You could say anything about anybody," he says. "Someone might have a gripe against you for any reason and they think this is one way to get back at you. The website is a weapon people can use indiscriminately and it's a sickening thought."

The attraction of websites such as Don't Date Him Girl is that women can participate without being identified. There are no efforts by the service provider to check the accuracy of the details or the truth of the allegations, even though these have the ability to destroy a reputation.

"Let's say you were living in a village and spread a terrible rumour about that person," says Dr Vicki Kirby, a sociologist at the University of NSW. "Just as with Salem and witchcraft, the value of that kind of information in that community can be devastating."

Postings on the websites may be defamatory, says David Rolph, a law lecturer at the University of Sydney, but there is no legal recourse if the poster cannot be identified. Adding more confusion to who is responsible for the posting is the fact that the website operators are in the US.

Trashy talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show expose mankind's desire to share scandals, whether real or fictitious. For the voyeurs, relationship break-ups provide good material because of the conflict, passion and anger that is often involved. With the popularity of blogs on the internet as personal publishing tools, it's no surprise that some people are posting their thoughts and feelings online to deal with being dumped.

Anyone wanting to start a blog about breaking up can use services such as Blogger.com, but there are places dedicated solely to giving the heartbroken a place to talk.

My Break Up Blog (http://www.mybreakupblog.com) is a free blogging tool that allows anyone to sign up and start pouring out their hearts about their recent relationship break-up. At last count there were about 150 blogs but these tend to have a short shelf life with updates drying up as the blogger recovers from heartbreak.

Johnson says using the internet to get over a relationship break-up can have some benefits, though the online environment provides a false sense of intimacy and can never replace conversations with friends.

"Talking to a stranger on the internet is not as satisfying as talking to a close friend who knows you. But not everybody can talk to their friends in that way, or have close people in their lives, so the internet may well take the place of talking to friends for people in those positions."

For professional help when a relationship goes bad, Relationships Australia has an online counselling service. For $80 an hour clients can talk to a counsellor in a private chat room and get expert advice. Anne Hollonds, who heads the organisation's NSW branch, says this service, which has been running for three years, is particularly popular among men who are often hesitant to walk into a practice to seek help. Online counselling may never replace face-to-face help, she says, but it has certain benefits.

"When people come to face to face, people are more naturally reserved and we have to work quite hard to get people to relax," she says. "Whereas online there is an element of intimacy that allows us to get to the point much faster."

Then again, how about deleting all memories of the traumatic break up? In the sci-fi film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a man and a woman go to a clinic and erase all memories of their past relationship from their minds to avoid the pain of splitting up.

It could be a solution to the difficulty of ending a relationship in the modern world - but there are some benefits to the emotional pain.

"You can learn from the painful experience and process what has happened to help you in your next relationship," Johnson says. "Breaking up may be one of the hardest things people will do, but it can be an important period of growth. With time and patience, you can come out the other end."

Cut the communication

With dating and social networking websites replacing bars and clubs as the places to find love and romance, the block function may prove the single most useful tool when things go wrong.

"There was one man I talked to online who ended up being rude and aggressive because I didn't want to meet up with him," says Vicki, 29, a lawyer who started online dating in August. "He became angry so I just blocked him."

Samantha Brett, of the Sam in the City blog, recommends using the block function on your instant messenger to banish the ex from your buddy list. "It's a tough one, but the cardinal rule is that if you want to get over a relationship, cut the communication," she says.

Blocking a person on instant messenger will prevent them from contacting you when you are online - and also will block you from messaging them in moments of weakness.

All popular email programs allow you to filter incoming email. On Gmail it only takes a few mouse clicks to create a filter that automatically sends all correspondence from your ex's email address into the trash.

The ability to block calls on your mobile phone varies depending on the features of the handset, but new generation voice-over IP phone services that use broadband technology, such as Engin, allow users to block calls from individual numbers as well as all anonymous callers.

"We call it the mother-in-law button where you can choose to block the last caller," says Kelvin Kirk of Engin. "It gives the user power to choose who they receive their calls from."

source:AP/smh.com.au

image:www.lock3down.com:WHEN IT`S OVER...."UR DUMPED"

[Shawn]

She made it clear she didn't want to speak to him again, yet he still tried to call her, send her emails and approach her on instant messenger. Each time the phone rang, she would dread finding out who was on the line.

In an article about how hi-tech she is it's revealed she hasn't seen the beauty of call display.