All the ways technology can help you break up with someone
Technology has completely revolutionized the way we date. From liking your crush’s Instagram photos to using different online dating platforms to sending flirty texts with the *perfect* emojis, it’s undeniable that the dating game is WAY different than it was 20 years ago. And technology is changing the way we break up, too. By sending a Facebook message to your soon-to-be ex or shooting a text into the abyss, you can end a relationship without even seeing their face. Pretty heartless, but it’s a thing people do now. But if you need extra help, well, there’s an app for that, because it’s almost 2016, after all.
The app, entitled Breakup Shop, allows you to pay anywhere from $5 to $80 to use email, snail mail, a text, or Snapchat to break it off with your love. The app, whose slogan is “Let us help you end it,” even has “nice” and “naughty” options — the former allowing you to send chocolate chip cookies and The Notebook on Blu-ray, and the latter sending a pic of you with your new boo (possibly used if your soon-to-be ex really, REALLY hurt you in an insanely cruel way).
“There’s all these services that can help you get into relationships, but none that help you get out of a relationship,” Break Up Shop co-founder Mackenzie Keast told CBS New York. “A lot of people will initially think it’s a prank or it’s a joke, and we have to remind them, we’ve been hired on behalf of so-and-so to break up with you for them.”
Thinking about ending it with your boo, but need a little help from technology? Here are some other ways your computer / phone can be anti-Cupid.
This 99-cent app was actually meant to be a means of entertainment, allowing you to send all sorts of templated texts from “I lost interest” to “I was eaten by a bear.”
“It was a total joke,” co-creator Jake Levine told New York Times. “It was meant to play into the fears of the older generation about what’s happening with relationships these days. People who would really break up this way are jerks. Maybe relationships are less serious for millennials, but I tend to think new technology changes human beings more slowly than we imagine.”
Well, if you want to be *totally* heartless, you could do it this way. Just expect a VERY angry phone call right after.
KillSwitch, whose slogan is “Making breakups suck less,” allows you to enter your ex’s name into the app, and it will help you out on the social media end of things. You know, getting rid of tagged photos, status updates, wall posts, all that fun stuff (although you can save the photos in a hidden album for later if you want).
“There are painful shards of a past relationship in your corner of the Internet,” co-creator Clara de Soto told New York Times. “It makes getting over something really challenging.”
Of course, you could always just unfriend your ex, but what if you don’t want to go that far? What if you want to try to keep things friendly, but it hurts to see anything of your ex on your newsfeed? Luckily, Facebook has a “compassion team” that is dedicated to making hard moments easier on the platform. Using its new “Take A Break” function, you can limit your ties with your ex without burning any bridges.
“We spoke to social scientists and experts to try and understand: Are we creating good?” Kelly Winters, product manager on Facebook’s compassion team, told New York Times. “One of the most powerful moments was talking to a man going through a divorce after 20 years. He said: ‘I have to co-parent our children with her for the rest of our lives. I’ve invested more in this relationship than anything else in my life.’ We want to be thoughtful about the fact that you might want to stay connected but don’t want to be reminded. The breakup flow lets people stay in touch gently and casually, and it’s on your terms.”
Sites that help you sell your ex’s stuff
What if the relationship has already ended, and you have no idea what to do with that necklace your ex gave you that totally fills you with rage? You can sell it for some serious cash. Never Liked It Anyway not only allows you to sell all the stuff your ex gave you, but provides a community where you can vent, grieve, and share advice with others who are going through the same thing. There’s also Out of Your Life, which allows you to sell engagement rings and other fine jewelry, and Breakupgoods, whose tagline is “Their loss. Your gain.”
So, there ya go. Let’s hope we never resort to sending a coldhearted breakup text to our boo, but if times get rough, well, it’s almost 2016. . . and technology’s got our back.
(Image via Shutterstock.)
