This week our social-media agony aunt looks at being fobbed off by tweet, and getting over a break-up when you’re online friends with your ex
Dear Cybersorter,
A good friend of mine is really starting to annoy me. Whenever I text her with something or send her a tweet, she nearly always replies with one word: LOL.
For a start, she obviously isn’t laughing out loud (I know I’m funny but these tweets or texts are generally quite mundane). Why is she bothering to waste 5c on a pointless text? It’s patronising, dismissive and so irritating.
I’ve tried asking her: “What’s so funny?” but she just doesn’t reply. How do I get the LOLing to stop? – AF
Dear AF,
It is a bit rude to answer everything with just a LOL. It seems some people are becoming addicted to internet abbreviations and acronyms. For example, “OMG WTF is she wearing, LOL”, would not be an uncommon or unacceptable tweet during the- latest episode of X Factor.
This manner of crunching up our language first developed as a short-hand among friends and inevitably spread to become a handy part of internet subculture.
In your case, it’s being used to fob you off. The offhand nature of it is understandably annoying. Perhaps your friend just has a very busy and important life, too busy and important to respond in kind to you when you make the effort to try and connect with her.
I’m tempted to advise you to respond to the next LOL with a simple FO (Friendship Over) but that would be sinking to her level.
So I suggest you stop texting or tweeting her and wait and see what she does. At the very least, it will break the annoying LOL cycle.
Dear Cybersorter,
I recently broke up with my boyfriend of eight years. The split was amicable and I haven’t blocked him on Facebook.
I’m worried I am watching his profile too much. Even when I’m out, I take a quick look to see whether he has posted something and what’s going on with him.
My friends are laughing about it and calling me a stalker.
I’m wondering if it means I want to get back with him or is this normal just broken-up behaviour? – DG
Dear DG,
I can’t tell you whether you want to get back together with him or not. I can tell you that continuing a one-sided relationship in your imagination by following his every move on Facebook will make that decision almost impossible to make with a clear head.
You need to hide his updates and stop checking his profile altogether. Watching his movements from afar allows you to continue a relationship with him, and to interpret/misinterpret how he’s feeling about things. Things like you.
If you aren’t looking each other in the eye and touching each other occasionally then it isn’t a real relationship.
Don’t let those eight years turn into a Facebook ghost that haunts you for another two years before you move on and find new love.