It’s become harder and harder to ignore the past. With Facebook, Twitter, and even our own blogs archiving our lives, you have to admit, it’s hard to escape what was. That’s especially tough when it comes to relationships. How does anyone forget when you have pictures of your ex still tagged on Facebook? Do you have to rummage through your Flickr photos and delete all the one’s with you and her? It’s not as easy as grabbing a bunch of photos and tearing it up, or bundling a bunch of letters you used to write to each other and burning it in some ritual Wiccan incantation. Our past haunts us, and I don’t even mean just in the world of the internet.
Image: savit keawtavee / FreeDigitalPhotos.netIn the world we live in today, relationships are like cars. You test drive, you see which one fits, you commit for awhile, and then you give it up for another model. As a result, there are a lot of exes and step families and extended families and even pseudo extended families. Kids have more than one mother and father nowadays with multiple sets of grandparents and cousins and the whole lot. How do you escape your past then? And maybe you’re asking yourself. “Why does Francis keep talkikng about escaping the past?” Because, it can’t be good for you…most of the time. And for many, it can’t be helped because we’re connected to those we “left behind” with children and the like.
The other day I was just milling about Facebook, checking out updates and reading all the funny little posts people put up. And as I transition from the top news to the most recent in all that is Facebook, I see in the right column, a familiar face. Now, I realize Facebook is trying to get me to add friends, and honestly, I’m quite content with my 30 friends. But how they pluck these people is anyone’s guess. But there he was, a man from my past, my ex-brother in law, suggested by the ever fun algorithm of Facebook’s whatchamadealy, and I am once again faced with my past.
Now one may ask, “Why don’t you get over it? It’s should be all behind you!” But the thing is, much like it’s been said in the past on Geek Love Radio and even here. The past can haunt us and cling to us. Now, for the sake of the show and because I haven’t had another point of reference for the last 8 years, but I do mention my ex on the podcast and the blog to make a point. Now I hate to emphasize that it’s simply in a nostalgic way, in which I mention her to relate to the topic or story at hand, but really, it’s the experience I have and what I have to go on. Yet, it’s still kind of bothersome to have to cross paths with your history.
I’ve never had this problem with anyone else in my life! I’ve managed to not even remotely run into anyone else in my life, and honestly, my ex-brother-in-law wasn’t bumped into at all, just merely suggested. And even then, it just goes to show how amazing the internet keeps us connected to our previous life. Let’s say I get with someone tomorrow,and I integrate them into the complex managerie of my internet hobbies of podcasting and blogging. If we were ever to break up, what would I do with those podcasts and blog posts? Delete them forever? Hell no! It’s part of the big picture! So what do I do?
There are people out there for whom wouldn’t understand what I’m saying. They are friends with their exes and their exes families, they delve into their past all willy nilly like it’s some old book they like to flip through over and over again to read their favorite passages. For me, it’s can be a crutch to moving forward, especially in a new relationship. No new girl wants to know about the women who were. Hell, my ex hated everything about my ex before her, and they never even met. But there were bits and pieces of that past relationship still in my life and I had to get rid of it. And I was better for it, I think.
What is your opinion of the past? Do you think you can live on and move on with different relationships with your past on the internet? Am I a loon for thinking that the past should stay the past and be as disconnected from your future? (Now of course all of this is in reference to relationships) What are your thoughts?
