Diary of a Separation (grieving the end of a relationship in the era of Tinder and Bumble)

Monday 2nd July

We need to get back to factory settings. We have gone way too far technologically. It is not only our mobile phones and devices we have overloaded with apps. It is us as well. There was a time when a break-up meant grieving time on one’s own. The pain, receding, as the distance from the former beloved grew. Nowadays, we’re never too far from our ex’s latest status update. Especially when such update (if/when it should arrive) will walk on two legs and it will most likely have the same gender as you. We have slowly done away with the traditional period of mourning a relationship and replaced it with left/right-swiping instead.

Outsourcing our actual lives and woes to a virtual reality is like appealing to a higher being for help with our most basic and quotidian tasks. It deprives us of our agency. It destroys our innate, skills-based personality. The one nature gave us. The words “I’m dating someone. I just wanted you to know” are heart-breaking but at least there is scope for resentment, anger, jealousy and all those other logical reactions. An Instagram post in which your ex and her new squeeze appear to be holding hands/rubbing fingers with each other/(delete as appropriate) leaves little space for doubt. It is a concise, precise and to…