There's a guy who I'm friends with on several social networks.
Offline, we share the same acquaintances, so I've heard a bit about him. Of all the people I pointlessly follow on social media, I enjoy frequenting his pages. His Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all painstakingly entertaining.
In my hours of boredom, I see it as a virtual soap opera — and where there's a soap opera, there's plenty more juicy drama.
Scores of women like and comment on his photos, professing their intense admiration and lust for him. Girls of varying backgrounds, ages, and sizes, spar with one another over who really gets his attention. He charismatically plays the mediator, telling each girl to respect the other and to apologize for the nasty things that are said.
I intrusively analyze his online life, play by play, since I know that in real life, he has a girlfriend.
It's circumstances like this that lead me to believe social media killed relationships. Millennials routinely risk their comfortable realities for the chance at entrancing fantasies.
Clearly, I was born in the wrong era.
I cower over the fact that everything is done for approval from outsiders. Yes, I'm active on social media, but I would say I'm more of a private user (oxymoron much?). I don't have thousands of followers and I don't hype my lifestyle. I'm there to stay updated on people I know and watch comical videos.
It's astonishing that I can gaze into the daily life of someone who lives 3,000 miles away. Yet, this innocent peering too often turns into inappropriate interplay.
Listening to a radio talk show recently, I heard the story of a woman raising a beautiful family with her husband of 13 years. Through Facebook, however, she was able to reconnect with her first love, spawning emotions she'd buried over a decade ago. They later met up. One can imagine the details of their encounter.
It's dispiriting to see so many promising bonds crumble from the temptation of leading a double life provided by social networks.
A friend of mine had a romance people wanted to mimic. She and her boyfriend were always together and spoke passionately of one another. But somehow, he found the time to have an online relationship with a woman two states away.
I looked at these situations and felt it was time to mark my territory.
I got the brilliant idea to forcefully ask my ex-boyfriend (when we were together) to post a picture of me on his Facebook and Instagram. I felt it should have been no problem to gush about me in front of his thousands of female followers. I figured that if my face was plastered on his page, it would act as a scarecrow driving away a bunch of feisty birds.
When a girl he once had relations with sarcastically commented, he removed the photo instead of removing her, stating that he was uncomfortable with the picture being up. I then realized how tight of a grip social media had on the lives of its users.
The dynamics of a traditional relationship have unquestionably been shattered. Now, there's not much exclusivity or loyalty.
Everyone still seems to be searching for the right one, even when that person is sitting faithfully beside them.
On Instagram, I posted a picture three weeks ago that read, "I guess our parents stayed together simply because they didn't have 7,000 other people following them at their disposal. … Nowadays when our relationships get hard, we can just log on and get high off of this false sense of security, appreciation and understanding."
Forget about charisma and drive, I want my next spouse to be oblivious to what a tweet or a #MCM (Man Crush Monday) even is.
So, you can have my Instagram, deactivate my Facebook and delete my Twitter forever. Sure, it's much easier to connect with people worldwide or to learn how to sew and cook.
But it makes it even easier to be unfaithful.