Want to Know Why You Have to Log In With Facebook?

Dear reader,

If you’re a returning reader of my blog, I love you!, and allow me to explain the new Facebook login.

As you might remember, I have had some issues in the past with people from my real life – and I’m not talking selected friends and family–  reading my blog. While this is certainly flattering, it also makes me very self-conscious.

The reason why I love blogging is because I don’t hold back. I have shared everything from my raw post-divorce pain to my first sex (finally!) to getting dumped (more than once!). For me to write freely about my life and the lessons I’m trying so hard to learn, I can’t be worrying about what others think. I need to write for me, and it’s a huge bonus if you read what I write and even more awesome if you connect to my words.

This is an icky way to feel when writing about
really personal crap.

The past few months, I have gotten word again that people who know me – but I don’t necessarily know them – are reading my blog. It's a mind fuck; this feels like a cross between being someone walking in on you masturbating and getting caught crying when you thought no one could hear you.

These are not people I would talk to about heartbreak or orgasms in real life, so I am not comfortable with those people reading my blog. 

Lucky for me, I have a genius programmer friend who would be an amazing criminal if he weren’t an upstanding guy. He has been super supportive of my writing and this blog. When I told him how upset I was about the situation and that I was considering pulling the plug on my blog, he wouldn’t have it. Instead, he came up with this great solution: require a Facebook login simply so I can know who’s stopping by my blog. If there are visitors that I’m not comfortable with, I can talk to them directly. He built it, and here we are! (I told you I have awesome friends.)

So, this is why you are now being asked to log in with your Facebook account. 

To be clear:

• I will never friend you
• I will never post anything on your wall
• I will never invite you to play Candy Crush with me (is that what people are playing?)

I know it’s annoying to log in, but know how much I appreciate your readership and comments, so I hope you will stay with me despite this extra login step.

Have any questions or concerns about logging in? Leave them in the comments and either I or my genius friend will respond.

Love, 

Kat 

Keeping Facebook Photos of Your Ex -- Just Documenting the Past or Harming Your Future?

Once upon a time, divorcees could just throw photo albums in the trash or rip photos into a million satisfying pieces.

Now, thanks to digital pictures and social media, the pictures of you and your ex will exist forever and ever and ever. As I get back into dating, I think about my relationship's footprint on Facebook. (By the way, I have a strict "no Facebook friending" rule with dating. You don't get to be my Facebook friend until... I'm not sure when. I haven't gotten there yet.)

...so am I a jerk if I don't delete pictures?

When I joined Facebook in 2007, Max and I already lived together. I never had to question what my relationship status should be. For five years, I shared photos of my life, which obviously meant tons of photos of Max – our first Christmas tree together, our pet hamster, the many weddings we attended (and we traveled everywhere for weddings, from Seattle to Munich), the day he proposed, wedding photos, baby pictures of our first (now just my) nephew, the day we closed on our condo. All of those wonderful moments were captured and shared with the Facebook world.

So what happens to all of those Facebook photos when the curtain drops on your relationship or marriage?

Here’s how I see it. Much as I do have a love/hate relationship with Facebook (why can’t I quit you?!), Facebook does show my personal history since 2007. Max was a huge part of my life during most of my time of Facebook. It just seems silly and false to delete pictures of us. (And, by the way, Max and I are still Facebook friends.)

When I was in Cancun for a girlfriends trip, my friend Dee, who’s engaged, debated this Facebook photo topic with me. 

Over cocktails and nachos at breakfast, Dee asked what if I start dating someone and I am actually willing to friend him on Facebook and all that, and then Boyfriend sees literally hundreds of photos from years ago of Max and me. How would that make Boyfriend feel?

“It shouldn’t really make him feel like anything. I was married. Now I’m not,” I said, always the practical one. “I mean, it’s not like I’m taking down pictures of friends who I lost touch with – they’re also part of my personal history. Boyfriend should be secure enough in our relationship today that photos from the past shouldn’t matter.”

Dee came back with a tough scenario. It's getting more serious with Boyfriend. Maybe now you've started friending each other's Facebook friends. What if Boyfriend now asks me to take down photos of Max and me?

My knee-jerk response is no, because that’s dumb. Digital photos from years ago are just documenting my past. What’s the big deal?

That said, I’ve never had feelings for someone who was once married. How would it make me feel to see photos of Boyfriend looking blissfully happy with a woman who is not me? I’m not the jealous type so I’d like to think I could shrug it off.

But, as Dee said, “As someone who used to date a divorced guy, it’s hard to know that the guy you love already promised someone else forever. And then, thanks to Facebook, you can torture yourself and look at those photos of your guy on his wedding day with some other woman.”

I started to answer when Dee cut me off.

“And don’t even tell me that you wouldn’t look at your guy’s wedding photos. You totally would.”

No arguments there. Of course I would look!

Again, Dee, good points for this newly divorced woman who’s trying to date.


What did you do about social media photos of you and your ex after your breakup?