In George Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith sat at his desk in the Ministry of Truth rewriting historical documents to fit Big Brother's current political line. There are few of us who can't relate to Big Brother's desire to rewrite the past, especially where relationships are concerned.
When it comes to exes, it seems there are two kinds. There’s the one where you tilt your head, roll your eyes and wonder aloud what you were thinking. And there’s the one that it took you months of solid drinking, crying and listening to love songs from the 1950s to get over.
Ireland being Ireland, everybody knows everybody’s business. People will always identify you as “that” guy that went out with “that” girl or so-and-so’s ex. But while you may not be able to remove these unwanted exes from your life, one website does allow you to erase them from your social-networking life.
Blockyourex.com pretty much does exactly what its tag line says: it hides your exes on the internet. You enter in their name (or names – you can add up to five exes for free), their Twitter username, their Facebook page, the URL for their blog and – hey presto! – any trace of your relationship with your ex has disappeared from your social-network life.
More than 8,000 people have already availed of the Ex-blocker’s services. The website is designed by creative agency JESS3. On their blog, JESS3’s director of marketing Alix McAlpine and president and co-founder Leslie Bradshaw explain the reasoning behind the blocker: “Everyone has known or has been that one person who can’t just walk away from a break-up, and, let’s face it, it’s never easy. The Ex-blocker just helps us a little further along the way on the path of heartbreak recovery.”
