A Hopeful Romantech

Why is it that we want our e-dentities to show the present but our identies have to bare the burden of our past?

I've had a recent break up. And it's very fresh. But over the past six months this sureal-ationship has not only taken over my life but it's taken over my Facebook newsfeed, shaped my photo albums and can explain why my blog posts have been more MIA than Paper Planes. I did expect that this would hurt. But I did not expect that it would give me a fear of facebook. A fear of seeing that person is now "listed as single" first and a fear of looking at pics labeled "into 09" as a memory versus part of my life.


The control freak in me wants to untag myself from the past 6 months and return to the days where my e-dentity was shaped by albums that read "San Funcisco" and "If it Ain't Hobroken Don't Fix It" -- but the truth is these photos and experiences have changed me and though they can technically be deleted they cannot truly be erased.

So bare with me as these photos remain fixed while that sad little broken heart pops up on my news feed and my status changes. Luckily, even though I have been on a blogging-sabbatical technology continues to evolve and with it so does romance. New mediums provide new possibilities and remind me that our newest "tweet"hearts could be just 140 characters away. So don't you worry, no matter what has happened I remain a hopeful romanTECH.

A Picture is NOT Worth 1000 Words

The short week following labor day has made me realize 2 things: 1) I am officially over gladiator sandals and 2) a (Facebook) picture is not worth 1000 words.

After gazing at dozens of uploaded last-blast celebrations hitting Facebook this week I couldn't help but wonder if all these "Fun Times @ Fire Island"-esque albums represent the reality of our lives. Are we really having that much fun or are these manufactured "images" that we want others to see?

Recently a close bud was caught in a Gossip-Girlsesque ring when he was "spotted" in a series of photos taken while he was away with a plutonic friend.



From the classic face-to-face hand held shots to strategically cropped beach photos with dualing Ray-bans the "e"-vidence was there. When a romanTECH interest confronted him about these pics his answer was suprisingly enlightened: What you don't see on Facebook is what I was thinking and feeling all weekend. I'm not sure he realized it, but he was on to something. Our photos don't really tell the true stories of our lives and experiences. Instead they allow us to construct an "image" of our experiences that is cropped, edited, tagged and ultimately debuted to a very interested audience -- our "friends" -- that have opted in. An album of Facebook photos provides a glimpse into 30 seconds over the course of three days. What it portrays can be as easily manipulated as editting 3 weeks of "reality" into 30 minutes of "reality TV." And if reality TV mirrored reality then The Hills would need to be a full hour so they would have enough time to create front-braids in Lauren Conrad's hair between scenes.

So what is the point? Maybe all the photo uploading is making us a generation of "posers" -- people more concerned with capturing and uploading the right moment then living it.

Best Face(book) Forward

Of course everyone is looking to put their best Face Forward, but sometimes Facebook pics feel like false advertising. But if you want to add some truth to the equation check out an amazing blog post on Two Birds One Feather (Thanks Annie!) that calls out the top 20 Facebook poses for guys.

The two archetypes I encounter most frequently are Prepster at a Function aka "date me and your future will be filled with matching your dresses to my bow tie collection and fetching me Glenfidich" and The Wacky Fun Guy Shot aka "I swear I didn't stage this photo, my life is really just this spontaneous and crazy." Right, and I just didn't untag myself out of six unflattering Facebook pics from an album titled "Too Legit to Quit."

Noticably missing from the list however are:

Man's Best Friend - a classic PG pose, which shows potential love interests that "if you take me home the worst that can happen is I'll mistake your leg for another golden retreiver."


Always a Groomsmen, Never a Groom - a smug, passive agressive way to tell the world "better him than me."


I'm with Alyssa Milano - any facebook profile shot with an actress that played a hot girl next door character (Wanda from Doogie Houser; Winnie Cooper from Wonder Years, etc) likely inducing the profilers first "shwing" tells potential suitors that "I have arrived."

**Disclaimer: All three guy-friends pictured above have not been harmed in the writing of this entry.

Live Action Facebook

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Special thanks to Abby for sending along! I hope these guys do a sequel to include SuperPokes...would love to see them throw live stock at each other.