Social Media & Your Relationship

In a Pew Research Center survey 46% of millennials said their social media accounts had a major impact on their relationships.

You should always make your partner feel more important to you than your phone. You should always shut your phone off when you are spending special time with your partner—like when you are having a meal. Continually checking your phone when you are together is rude!

Social media makes it easy to check on someone’s life. It can also be easy to check on someone’s emails and texts if you have their password. If you feel the need to snoop on your partner, than there is a lack of trust in the relationship.  Some people are very private and would be very upset if they found out you were snooping on them.  Snooping is never a good idea in the real world or online! Honest conversations about “boundaries” early in the relationship can prevent problems later.

And using Facebook as an open book of your relationship is a big mistake. Even in this time of heightened social media use, very solid, strong, happy couples often choose not to use Facebook except for trivia.

Honest conversations about your social-media boundaries early in a relationship can prevent surprised later.

Online Dating Can Be Tricky

We’ve all heard of someone who met someone on the Internet and got married—but what about the nightmare stories of people “dating” online—we never hear about those!  Online dating can be very tricky.  You have to learn how to navigate through the spam, the unwanted solicitations and the people who pretend they are someone they aren’t.  There is no way to know the person you are communicating with is for real—and not some sex pervert—or worse.

Use your common sense when the person sends you a message in broken English with bad grammar; if they send you a photo of a handsome man with a great body or a gorgeous woman; if they ask you to video chat or ask for your email address—never video chat or give them your email address; and if they ask you for money or for any personal information—distance yourself as quickly as possible.

Read the person’s profile carefully and try to  do a background check on the person before contacting them. Check them out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Also be wary of the person who can only see you during the week—they are either married or have another commitment!

Online dating can be tricky. People are less than truthful when it comes to their dating profiles. Men and women lie about different things. They lie through their teeth about physical stature, their race, their wealth, their job, their career, their age, their nationality, and even their marital status.

Whatsyourprice.com surveyed members across the country and found that most New Yorkers lie on their profile. 33 percent of men and 34 percent of women lie on their profile—far more than the national average of 19 percent of men and 27 percent of women. But Washington, D.C. and Atlanta singles are even bigger liars than New Yorkers!

Men are more likely to lie about their salary or their job, about their career, their wealth, whether or not they are smokers, their marital status, their age, showing a recent photo, where they actually live and more. Their entire profile could be one big lie!

Women are more likely to lie about their career, their weight, their nationality, their age, their marital status, showing a recent photo, and more. Their entire profile could also be one big lie!

Your New Year’s Resolutions

Many of us start off the new year by making New Year’s resolutions.  It’s a great tradition that has gone on forever. Unfortunately, most of the “resolutions” we make we will never keep. The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to think about how we’d like to improve our lives. Don’t set your goals too high, because you are setting yourself up for failure.

One of the first things you should do to start off the new year is to unfriend your ex!  Whether it is your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, ex-husband or ex-wife, an ex-lover, or someone who has been negative energy in your life—the old-school way of going cold turkey and cutting off all contact with that person is the best way. The effects of remaining Facebook friends with that person (or even simply keeping an eye on their activities online) can disrupt a person’s ability to heal emotionally and move on with their lives. Delete them now!

Among the top ten resolutions each year are financial goals—such as getting out of debt or saving for retirement. Your financial goals should take top priority. Carrying too much debt is bad for anybody.  You should  make a concerted effort to pay off all your credit card debt. Then you should consciously try not to pull out your credit card so quickly to pay for something. Think about this:  if you had to write a check or pay cash for it, would you buy it? You would probably think twice about buying it and probably not do it.

Saving for your retirement is also very important.  The more you put in, the more you will have when you need it.  Regular investing is the key. Social Security may not be there when you need it, and it doesn’t pay that much anyway.

Have You Been “Ghosted”?

Ghosting is when someone cuts off all communication without explanation. It can just be a friend not responding to your texts or phone calls; or even worse a lover who is ending a relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring your attempts to reach them. When someone has stopped responding to your calls or text messages, they are “ghosting” you.

Ghosting is a form of silent treatment equal to emotional cruelty. It’s really important to realize that if someone ghosts you their behavior says more about them than about you.

The advent of technology seems to have made this worse. It can be very hurtful if a friend has cut you out of his or her life and you can still keep track of them on Facebook and Twitter. Some people don’t have the guts to tell you that they are no longer interested in having you in their life, so they ghost you. They find it hard to deal in person with ending a relationship. Or maybe they have tried to tell you and you just wouldn’t listen!

The term has already entered the polling vocabulary: In October 2014, a Huffington Post poll of 1,000 adults showed that 11 percent of Americans have “ghosted” someone. Elle magazine polled 185 people and found that 16.7 percent of men and 24.2 percent of women had “ghosted” someone at some time in their lives.

Social Media and Your Relationship

In a 2014 Pew Research Center survey 46% of millennials said their social media accounts had a major impact on their relationships.

You should always make your partner feel more important to you than your phone. You should always shut your phone off when you are spending special time with your partner—like when you are having a meal. Continually checking your phone when you are together is rude!

Social media makes it easy to check on someone’s life. It can also be easy to check on someone’s emails and texts if you have their password. If you feel the need to snoop on your partner, than there is a lack of trust in the relationship.  Some people are very private and would be very upset if they found out you were snooping on them.  Snooping is never a good idea in the real world or online! Honest conversations about “boundaries” early in the relationship can prevent problems later.

And using Facebook as an open book of your relationship is a big mistake. Even in this time of heightened social media use, very solid, strong, happy couples often choose not to use Facebook except for trivia.

Honest conversations about your social-media boundaries early in a relationship can prevent surprised later.

Online Dating Can Be Tricky

We’ve all heard of someone who met someone on the Internet and got married—but what about the nightmare stories of people “dating” online—we never hear about those!  Online dating can be very tricky.  You have to learn how to navigate through the spam, the unwanted solicitations and the people who pretend they are someone they aren’t.  There is no way to know the person you are communicating with is for real—and not some sex pervert—or worse.

Use your common sense when the person sends you a message in broken English with bad grammar; if they send you a photo of a handsome man with a great body or a gorgeous woman; if they ask you to video chat or ask for your email address—never video chat or give them your email address; if they ask you for money or for any personal information—distance yourself as quickly as possible.

Read the person’s profile carefully and try to  do a background check on the person before contacting them. Check them out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Also be wary of the person who can only see you during the week—they are either married or have another commitment!

Online dating can be tricky. People are less than truthful when it comes to their dating profiles. Men and women lie about different things. They lie through their teeth about physical stature, their race, their wealth, their job, their career, their age, their nationality, and even their marital status.

Whatsyourprice.com surveyed members across the country and found that most New Yorkers lie on their profile. 33 percent of men and 34 percent of women lie on their profile—far more than the national average of 19 percent of men and 27 percent of women. But Washington, D.C. and Atlanta singles are even bigger liars than New Yorkers!

Men are more likely to lie about their salary or their job, about their career, their wealth, whether or not they are smokers, their marital status, their age, showing a recent photo, where they actually live and more. Their entire profile could be one big lie!

Women are more likely to lie about their career, their weight, their nationality, their age, their marital status, showing a recent photo, and more. Their entire profile could also be one big lie!

Break Up App

At the end of the year or the beginning of a new year people seem to think it’s a good time to “clean house” and break up with someone they’re in a relationship with but whom they’re not happy with or realize that the relationship is going nowhere. They want to start the new year with a clean slate, so to speak.

Ending a relationship used to be a private matter and one handled personally. But if you’re a coward and don’t have the guts and not up to the dirty deed yourself, the Breakup Shop will do it for you. The site, whose slogan is “Let us help you end it,” uses email, snail mail, text or Snapchat. They charge $5 to $80 for customized options.

Changes in Facebook relationship statuses that mentioned “breakup” revealed a peak in the two weeks before Christmas. It’s always been possible to “unfriend” someone on Facebook, but the company’s new “breakup flow” allows you to limit your connection with an ex—untagging photos, getting rid of past posts and edition any mention of your news feed. For now the breakup flow is available only in the United States, only on mobile devices and only for a random test group.

Maintaining even limited social media ties is a mistake and unhealthy. It may lead to cyberstalking and ex’s activities and new relationships.

Mobile Dating Game

Online dating, long dominated by the largest sites like Match.com, eHarmony and OkCupid has been transformed in the last two years by Tinder, the mobile app that lets its users scan photos and short profiles of potential dates. It has opened up a young demographic—18-25 year olds—that the other dating sites haven’t.

It’s easier, faster and more discreet to swipe though an app than to create extensive online profiles. The downside of that is uncertainty because you don’t really know a lot about the person you are contacting. A good thing about Tinder, though, is that no one can send you a message unless you both like each other. It’s an instant filter.

Because of this simplicity, Tinder’s growth has exploded in just two years. According to the company, it processes more than one billion swipes a day and matches about 12 million people a day. A “match” means that two people agree that they are interested in each other. They can choose to either exchange messages or to meet in person.

You have to have a Facebook account to use Tinder. Most Facebook profiles are tied to real identities and real names. Tinder also shows you if you have friends in common. You set up a profile, log in using your Facebook login and then chose photos you want to use. Tinder will automatically fill in a few for you. Then you create a short bio, or leave it blank. You can set up search parameters like distance, age and gender. After that you are ready to go!

Divorce Guide

This is a “must read” for anyone contemplating a divorce…

www.preparefordivorce.com

 

Social Media Self-Censorship

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, people who use Facebook and Twitter are less likely to share their opinions of hot issues.

The study which was done in conjunction with Rutgers University challenges the view of social media as a vehicle for debate by suggesting that sites like Facebook and Twitter might actually encourage self-censorship. Researchers said they detect what they call “spiral of silence” phenomenon: Unless someone knows that their audience agrees, they are likely to avoid discussing anything controversial.

The survey was conducted shortly after Edward Snowden acknowledged leaking classified intelligence that exposed widespread government surveillance of Americans’ phone and eMail records.