Now, a handful of us out there have got the badge for being in a romantic relationship once (or twice, three times maybe…), the love-at-first-sight, butterflies, the ‘firsts’ with your special one. But along with all of that, comes heartbreak (oh, aren’t we all accustomed to that?).
Let me explain…
1. The “first meeting” stage: When you first set eyes on “them”, you’re eager to get acquainted, and find out all the nitty details about them. This is the same for a new social media platform about to be released (beta). ‘You know you’re signing up to be on the mailing list, hoping for one of the first invites or begging your friends who have access to “introduce” you to this new hottie’. How’s it going Pinterest?
2. The “honeymoon” stage: Everything is flowing smoothly like a Disney movie with your new hottie. You can’t wait to see them, you can’t stop thinking about them, you’re over joyed! I felt like this with Facebook, some time in 2007. Didn’t you?
3. The “consistent effort” stage: Relationships need energy and time in order to flourish and boom, as does new social media platforms. ‘Just because you have built your follower base and become a “social celeb” of sorts does not guarantee you will stay there if you don’t keep putting in the effort’. If you don’t keep trying, your Twitter followers start to dwindle away and your Facebook friends will unfriend you. If you stop making an effort, your relationship will start crumbling down. Remember Piczo anyone?
4. The “it’s not you, it’s me” stage: As much as we all hate it, unless they are ‘the ONE’ the relationship will wither away and it’s inevitable that ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ will be chucked in there somewhere. It’s the green light that the contract you have is going nowhere. Some say social media works the same way. We change, people change and everyone starts to go their own way, so who’s certain that everyone won’t become sick of Instagram or Twitter soon? What’s that MySpace?
5. The “I don’t know what went wrong” stage: Sometimes, hearts get broken without a good reason (boys huh?). But the best thing to do, is pick yourself up, buy some new stuff and acknowledge that you deserve better and one day they’ll come walking right into your life (who knows, maybe they already have). Same with the networks, a new company takes over your favourite social media and changes the features you liked best without asking. Accept that it’s in the past, and can no longer make you smile…then move on!
You will find happiness eventually… in romance and social media I guess!
Meera Patel – @MeeraGiraffeSM
