Why do you use social media?

Have you ever even really thought about it?

Is it just what people do?

I mean these days, if you aren’t on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, then you might as well not even exist.

If someone asked me right now why I’m on social media, I’d say that I use it to keep in touch with my friends who happen to hail from all around the world and that would be a 100% true statement.

But it wouldn’t be the whole truth … not entirely.

The truth of the matter is that, yes, while I do use Facebook to keep up with friends in Romania, Alaska, Japan, and Germany, often these platforms create a connectivity that I can’t get otherwise. They allow us to keep up with people that we wouldn’t usually spend two minutes of effort to keep them in our lives. It also keeps us connected with the people who wouldn’t spend that effort on keeping up with us.

Heck, I have over a thousand friends on Facebook and I am close with maybe 20 of the and a good hundred or so are family. The rest are acquaintances and people I know through work.

So, what am I doing telling you this?

Well… I could be one of those people who are like

“look how many friends I have!”

Or I could actually have a point.

Well, as much as I’d like to have a reason to be that full of it, I’m not…. There is a point to all of this.The point is that these connections are almost as pointless as the connections we feel to actors in movies.

The point is that these connections are almost as pointless as the connections we feel to actors in movies. We are no closer to those 200 family members who are just keeping tabs on you for your mom because she refuses to get a Facebook. *cough cough*

So, it CAN be used to stay connected, but, more often than not, it’s used to create the FEELING of being connected.These days, unfriending someone can be used as a direct insult or as a self-preservation strategy.

These days, though, unfriending someone can be used as a direct insult or as a self-preservation strategy.

In the case of most break-ups, the goal is to stop the hurt it caused.

And, let’s be honest, all you want to know at this point is why?

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

Well, I think we can agree that every breakup is as unique as the individuals involved. So, without knowing your ex, I can only guess at the “why” part of things.

So, if we put ourselves in her shoes we’d probably do the same thing.

It May Be a Rash Decision by Your Ex Girlfriend

So let’s say you log in and you notice that she’s unfriended you.

Was there a fight or something that would make her suddenly not want to see reminders of you every time she logs in?

I realize that you are in a place where seeing your ex on social media is still promising, but putting yourself in her shoes might make things a little easier. And it shouldn’t be too hard to do depending on how long you were together. I mean, being together, you kind of get a feel for the other person’s perspective of the world.

So let’s jump in.

It’s never a good idea to make decisions while you’re mad. Just trust me on this one. I’ve had my fair share of dealing with the aftermath of a rash decision.

It could be that while she was still upset about the breakup or what caused the breakup, she decided to cut you out of her social media life. This could be for one or both of the following reasons.

1. She wanted to cut you off. As punishment for ticking her off, she wanted to deny you access to what is going on in her life. That’s understandable to think this way in anger, but if she actually wanted to punish you she would have kept you around and put on a show of how “wonderful” a life she’s built since the relationship ended. ( I put wonderful in quotations because the life we portray online is rarely the actual life we live.)
2. The more likely scenario is that, in her moment of being hurt over the breakup or what caused the breakup, she decided to avoid being hurt more by removing the temptation to watch what you have going on in your life. The hardest thing to do is move forward in life when you are still holding on to the past.

Did you ever play THE Game? It was a silly game but the idea was, the only way that you could win was if you didn’t think about the game.

It was almost impossible to win because as soon as you decide NOT to think about something, you are sure to think of nothing else.

Like pink elephants.

If you try not to think of your ex, then she is ALL you are going to think about. How else did you find yourself here?

When you have a fight with someone, do you not spend the next day or so going over and over what you could have done differently, better comebacks and regretting word choices?

I guarantee you, that’s exactly what she did.

Have you ever been in an argument with a woman and she walks away likes she’s done and hours or days later says,

My ex used to get such a kick out of our arguments. Days after we had ended the fight and made up, I would be in the shower in my tiny apartment and I’d suddenly be like “Dangit!” Of course, him thinking I had hurt myself, since I am a huge klutz, burst in prepared to save the day.

“What happened?!”

I’d stand there looking at him, clearly angry, but also with shampoo getting in my eyes and all I could say was,

“I just thought of the perfect comeback for that stupid thing you said the other day. I don’t suppose you want to fight again so I can be incredibly witty?”

It’s not uncommon for our minds to continue processing a situation long after it is over.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

I’m sure by now you’ve gotten what I am trying to say. After whatever happened happened between the two of you, she either deleted you as a rash decision or she anticipated that she would eventually do something rash and deleted you as a counter measure.

The thing about this is, as a woman myself, I can tell you that she will eventually regret deleting you.

Why?

Because humans are dumb. I can admit that I’ve done some pretty dumb things at times.

Even if we are absolutely sure that we want to walk away from a relationship, we will inevitably want to know what is going on in our ex’s life. And we WILL find a way to find out, whether we’ve set up roadblocks for ourselves or not.

We are gluttons for punishment.

Is it stupid?

Of course it is!

I can honestly tell you that I still check up on the guys I’ve dated, even all the way back to High School.

Why?

Well, I have mixed emotions about all of them. While my life has gotten much better since any of those relationships ended, I still care about what happens to them. I truly want good lives for each of them.

Now, I’m not saying it wouldn’t make me unbelievably happy to find out that they are regretting that they ever let me go. But, once you invest time and emotions into caring about someone, deep down you always want them to succeed. You just don’t want to constantly be reminded that they are doing well without you.

I’m sure you can understand the predicament she found herself in.

If I guess correctly, you are in a similar predicament now.

Right?

So, you can understand why she would want a break from seeing what’s going on with you, especially if you are sure to keep your Social Media postings positive. Wouldn’t you want to avoid seeing her life going well without you?

If removing you from her Social Media was a rash decision, then it is most likely not simply keeping you from having access to her life, or her from yours. It simply puts a little more distance between you.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

Your Ex Girlfriend May Be Weighing Her Strategic Options

If it took a while for her to decide to unfriend you and there wasn’t really a catalyst at all, then chances are that she weighed the options.

1. She could use social media to keep tabs on you, which is really one of the main reasons people keep their exes in their friends list for so long in the first place.
2. She could remove you and it will make the break-up easier to move past.

Either way, what is the commonality here?

She’s making her decision based on how she feels.

What Are Your Chances of Getting Your Ex Girlfriend Back?

Take the quiz

If she has kept you around for a while, then it could be that she hoped to reconcile or that she hoped to stay in each other’s lives. Now that she’s removed you there is something you can take from that. That it hurts to see you, whether you’re handling the breakup really well or posting sappy song lyrics and back and white photos constantly, she can’t handle seeing it and she’s decided to create that distance based on the way it makes her feel.

Let me use my own experience to explain.

I was seeing this guy last fall. He was great on paper.

• Had the same values as me.
• Good Looking.
• Responsible.
• Great work ethic.
• Involved in our community.
• Close with his family.

The only downside, he was hung up on someone else from his past. We’d been seeing each other for a few months, and while I liked him a lot, it was clear that things weren’t going to pan out for us as a couple. So we went our separate ways.

He’s now dating the girl he was hung up on. And we never unfriended each other on Social media. In fact, we added each other on Insta after we split. The thing is, even though I liked him, I wasn’t heartbroken over it. Had I been I wouldn’t be able to see him post pictures of the two of them being unbelievably cutesy together, let alone like them.

The truth is, I’m glad he’s happy, and I can acknowledge that, if he likes her, she must be pretty great.

I’m lucky that I hadn’t really fallen for him. If I had it would have been painful to keep seeing them together.

Here’s the upside to her unfriending you. You can pretty much assume that she still has feelings regarding you.

Here’s the downside, she’s actively trying to set those feelings aside so she can go on living life without having to deal with them.

It’s All About Getting Control To Deal With Your Ex

This is where No Contact is important.

No Contact is meant to create space between the two of you so that you can grow as a person and then reintroduce yourself and sort of rebuild the relationship. By removing herself from your social media, she’s made staying in No Contact that much easier for you.

I understand how easy it is to get caught up in the “why women do what they do” thought process.

But the key here is acceptance. Once you accept that you aren’t going to know for certain why she unfriended you and accept the likeliness that she did it just to make things easier on herself the more likely it is that you will get through No Contact without breaking it.

So, what do I mean when I say “It’s all about control”?

Well, there are very few things that we have control over in our lives. One of the few things we do have control over is the way we react to the occurrences around us.

Let me tell you a little bit about my childhood.

Growing up, I was what you would call Obsessive Compulsive. I would do things repetitively, convinced that something terrible would happen if I didn’t.

Obsessive Compulsiveness is centered around a series of unreasonable thought processes.

I believe that my behavior came from a desire to control things outside of my realm of influence. For example, I was convinced that if I completed a certain set of things, then the people I loved would be safe.

The thing was, I knew that what I was doing made no sense.

I was aware that my counting to a certain number while I brushed my teeth had no hold over whether my friend was in a car accident or a family member’s heart giving out. There was no actual correlation between the two circumstances.

So, I set about breaking the behaviors I had grown to find a sense of control in. This was an extremely difficult process. What was even more difficult is that I spent the entirety of my childhood hiding these behaviors from the people around me. Even, my mother didn’t realize why it took me so long to do simple tasks, or why I tied and retied my shoes over and over again. I guess she just assumed I was really into hygiene and held myself to a ridiculous standard of tying knots.

Regardless, she never said anything about it and I just kind of decided on my own that I wasn’t going to let this unreasonable way of thinking control me any longer.

Overcoming these habits meant I had to take control over my thoughts and reactions to things.

I had to replace the habits I had created as a child with better, healthier habits. So, I took to finding comfort in organizing the world around me; creating filing systems for the people I worked for, color-coding my closet, and alphabetizing my DVDs. You get the idea. I did this without putting some outside stipulation on it. It became,

“I do this because I want to, not because I need to.”

I trained myself to get away from the “If I don’t do ______, then _____  will happen,” way of thinking.

It wasn’t easy.

The reason I mention this is because that is what you are dealing with now. You cannot control the things going on outside of your immediate reach. What you can control is the thoughts you have and the way you react to the things around you.

In my fascination with organizing the world around me, I found David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”. David Allen is a productivity specialist of sorts. Anyways, when I read his book, I found myself exceedingly fascinated by a point that he made regarding an old martial arts tactic.

The idea was called “Mind Like Water.”

I want you to picture a peaceful lake.

Do you have that picture in your mind?

Okay. Now, I want you to imagine throwing a pebble into the lake. Hear the noise it makes as it hits the water.

“Bwip” (that’s the sound it makes… for those of you who are confused by my silly noise skills.)

And watch as a few tiny ripples emanate from where the pebble entered the water.

Then the water returns to calm, right?

Now, I want to tell you story about my friend’s Uncle to illustrate the other end of the spectrum.

We’ll call him Uncle Buck. Because who doesn’t love Chris Farley? And, to be honest, Uncle Buck was kind of a big guy. You get the picture.

Let me clarfy.

Anyways, we were out swimming in her pool one day, me, my friend Clarissa, and a couple of her cousins, Jeff and Sam Her Uncle Buck was keeping an eye on us for the day. Now we all loved Uncle Buck. He was kind of a goofball, always playing pranks and making us laugh.

Well, Uncle Buck had these ridiculous swim trunks with rubber ducks all over them. And he came out that day with those floaties that little kids wear and a full on snorkel mask complete with a snorkel on. He looked ridiculous! And like I said before, he was a BIG guy, so his stomach stuck out and hung over the top of his swim shorts like some sort of Hawaiian Santa Claus.

So, as soon as we saw him come out the door, we immediately burst out in uncontrollable laughter, all four of us. We were all laughing so hard, that we didn’t realize he had started to run towards the pool.

By the time we realize that the pounding of his feet on the pavement was getting closer, it was too late for us to prepare for the inevitable. He was already airborne, his arms hugging his knees to his chest for the perfect cannonball.

I can still feel the panic rising in my chest as the tidal wave hit us. I’m fairly certain that the pool was 5 inches lower by the time the water in the pool settled.

You are probably wondering what the point I’m trying to make is?

Well, if you threw that pebble into the lake, you’d be surprised if, instead of a few measly ripples, you were hit by a huge tidal wave.

Right?

Well, water always responds appropriately to its circumstances.

The circumstances you are facing with your ex unfriending you seem to be an attack at first, because it tends to hit you right in the ego. I get that.

But, if you mistake her protecting herself to be an attack, then you are likely to overreact.

She threw the pebble, and you respond with a tidal wave. It isn’t the appropriate response.

So, I hope you realize that you can CHOOSE how to react to the unfriending and t moment to process before overreacting.

Okay, let’s play this out.

What happens if you over react to the unfriending?

Let’s say you demand an explanation of some sort. The likeliness that you actually get an explanation is slim and you make it clear that you are going to overreact to little things. Is that going to make her want you back?

I know it’s easy to see the unfriending as a provocation of sorts, but if you step back and allow yourself to see reason, it’s more likely that her unfriending you had nothing to do with you at all and everything with her trying to protect her heart. That’s understandable, right?

So, the best reaction here is no reaction at all. At most, you might mention to a common friend (who you know repeats things) when THEY BRING HER UP that you noticed she unfriended you, but you completely understand why she would do that. And that you respect her decision, even though you hope eventually the two of you can coexist.

Only do this, if you can completely back it up by not doing anything that would counteract it.

What you want to do after that is do a full No Contact. Use the time to get your life in order. Tidy up anything you’ve let go.

Perhaps you really dislike your job, you have goals you haven’t really fulfilled, or you have some really negative influences in your life. The goal here is to decide what kind of life you want to have, and make moves toward making it happen.

Make a plan and stick to it.

I realize that this isn’t exactly simple, but there is tons of information right at the edge of your fingertips, all you have to do is log on.

If you want to learn something new, there is Khan Academy, which is basically access to free education online.

If you need to know how to fix something there is HowStuffWorks and numerous YouTube videos. (I’ve fixed three computers, my car, and the garbage disposal with their help.)

Basically, just work on getting your stuff together, and be grateful that you won’t constantly be reminded about your ex every time you get on Social Media.

Bonus! The One Thing Your Ex Doesn’t Want You to Know

It’s not really a secret that people Facebook stalk their exes. But I constantly hear guys react to unfriending as if their ex won’t see any of the improvements they make. They act as if they’re going to rent out billboards if they want her to notice.

Well, one, if you are only making your life better, then you’re missing the point.

Clearly, something wasn’t working in the relationship. If you are going to fix the parts of this that are in your control, then you have to commit to it for you, not just because you want her back. If you just do it to win her back, then it’s likely that as soon as you get what you want, the relationship with fall apart all over again… this time for good.

The goal of making your life better is to make your life better. Getting her back is just a possible outcome. Either way, you end having your life in order. And that is a plus.

I assure you, that your ex will see the improvements you make in your life.

You see, when women start to like someone, it’s like the coding in their brain gets rearranged. It’s like your name and all words associated with your name get hardwired in as keywords.

Right now, if you have a PC, I want you to press ctrl + F.

Did you do it?

In the box I want you to type the word “rearranged,” then hit enter.

The page jumped to that word and highlighted it, right?

That is how a woman’s mind works.

Even after a relationship ends, that coding doesn’t get rewritten for a long while.

Anytime she hears your name, something she associated with you, or even something that just sounds like your name, her attention will shift towards whatever is being said out of habit.

That is why I said it was okay to mention to your mutual friend, who would likely repeat it, that you understood why she needed to unfriend you and that you respected her decision.

That way, even though it doesn’t necessarily NEED to be acknowledged, you have put the information out there so that if she happens to hear it from a friend, you aren’t overreacting in any way, being confrontational, or breaking No Contact.

Now, that you know how to deal with being unfriended, you are all set to move forward with the Ex Recovery Program and be successful!

To get started on getting her back… click here!