Getting dumped is rough, but what happens when you get dumped without knowing it? In today’s day and age, those cowardly people who in the past would resort to dumping someone via an answering machine, or a formal letter, can now do it instantly, over facebook (or any other social medium) I had a buddy this happened to and the result was catastrophic.

First off my buddy, let’s call him Sully, had a girl who was pretty hot. She was an actual professional dancer (for a local sports team, not for a local pole) They had plans to get married and have a bunch of kids and the last we all saw them together, a distant wedding was being planned. Sully goes away for a weekend trip in which he doesn’t have internet. That Saturday evening, his girlfriend decides “it’s not working” and dumps him via facebook. By the time Sully signs on, which wasn’t until fucking Tuesday, he’s got a bombardment of condolence messages and people asking what happened. Needless to say, Sully was pissed and her car got fucked up.

The social network notifications have gotten so bad, that any time a friend of yours posts anything, you can have it set to send you an email, or an even more invasive text message. Since everyone has the facebook ap on their respective iphone or blackberry, you could literally never be without facebook.

My personal favorite is that when anyone removed the “in a relationship status” for any reason, a big fucking heart split in two pops up on the notification screen. It’s bad enough you just got dumped but to have a cartoony illustration of it, adds insult to injury. Where’s the animated icon of the guy doing shots, or banging the first drunk slut he sees later that evening?

When facebook couples (ie women, cause men don’t care enough about this shit) have a fight, one (the woman) or the other might change their relationship status to “It’s complicated” signaling their significant other that they are in the dog house. This shit really crosses a line, when everyone (female) on her friends’ list jumps in with the comments, and some bitches (usually the fat ones) have the audacity to click the “likes” button about it. If you want to have a fight with your girlfriend in public, fine. You scream and yell and throw things. In public you’re usually left with gaping mouth soccer moms, and people too afraid to say anything to disrupt the situation. Online however, you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of a barrage of comments against you, cause let’s face it, when would your guy friends jump in to defend you in a comment war against seemingly fat chicks?

Another thing that can happen is a guy could be stupid enough to get himself dumped as result of facebook. You don’t want drunk pics of you getting a lapdance from some slut tagged and showing up on your girlfriend’s notification page. You also don’t want to hook up with someone on her friends list in any way that it could possibly get back to her. Unfortunately now when we do something we need to think not only “can I get caught?” but “how will I get caught?”

The moral of the story is simple:

Go into those privacy settings and disable certain (fat) people from being entitled to every single detail of your life, or at least from being able to like or comment on them all. Next, if you know your relationship is headed south, dump her before she has the chance to dump you…especially over facebook.

It’s a rainy evening and after several hours of fighting with your girlfriend, she turns to you and says those four horrible words, “We need to talk.” Hours later you’re left sitting in a chair with a cold box of pizza at your feet, replaying not only the evening, but the entire relationship. Maybe if you had done some things differently, she’d still be there. After the recommended number of times listening to Cinderella’s “Don’t Know what you got (til it’s gone)”, some few weeks without shaving, it’s time to get back out there! The world isn’t over and believe it or not there’s several other fish in the sea. Clear away those empty liquor bottles and take the trip with your buddies to a strip club. She dumped you, you got fed up with her, whatever the case, here are some helpful tips for easing back in into the dating world.

-Take some time, hell you’ve earned it. Some people enjoy just being single for a while, then when you are ready, hit the ground running.

-When you find yourself back on the dating scene, or respective dance floor, you’d definitely want to avoid talking about the recent breakup. It’ll just bring everyone’s mood down. On the other hand, if you are hitting on a girl who is recently single, let her say anything she needs to about her ex, reminding her that you are there for her now. Every girl needs a rebound guy.

-Keep yourself busy. Don’t give in to the temptation to send an ex a late night text message (unless you are drunk, it’s past 3am, and the content is not PG-rated) and never ever pick up the phone. However, if you and the ex can be cool-headed enough to keep up a no strings “physical” relationship, then by all means. Booty-calls are a great thing to have should you find yourself on bland dates that won’t be paying off or putting out.

-Delete her from your phone, buddy list, and facebook. The first step to getting over someone is to get them out of your life. I don’t recommend you tossing all the pictures unless it’s an extreme case, but you don’t want to remain her facebook “friend” only to have her sabotage your new prospect’s wall. You also don’t want her to have the ability to stalk you and keep tabs on your every move.

Make a clean break. You can’t talk to her friends anymore and she shouldn’t be talking to yours. Establish any bro code rules pertaining to any of your buds getting a crack at her. Get rid of her stuff, especially any things she left “lying around your place”. If you lived together, don’t just trash her belongings, you could probably get arrested for that.

Be sure to make yourself as available as possible and it doesn’t hurt to make sure she sees you with a new girl. Keep a positive outlook at all times, and reflect it in things like your away messages and tweets. Breakups hurt sure, but it’s nothing that a few shots and a roll in the hay can’t cure.