Bloke's Column: Garrit Fishbaum

Garrit Fishbaum

28/08/08

Our American pen pal discovers why relationships and Facebook don't mix - again!

Shalom, Whisperverts!

Last time you heard from me, I was struggling with a girl who I liked fine and all - but who seemed to take to my Facebook wall with a little too much gusto, a little too much TMI. She'd post little allusions to our sex life, make reference to our deep abiding bond, all in full view of dozens of other former and/or future lovers. It was, like, omgwtf, WAY UNCOOL.

Indeed. You probably can already see where this is going, but it took a twist that even caught me unprepared.

So this week I broke it off. Same old scene: a glass was set down loudly upon the table, a sniff was sniffled, and then a hug was had. Different degrees of ‘it’ness were assigned to ‘you’ and ‘me’. Goodbye, we'll be in touch.

But! The next day! My email tells me she has tagged me in a photo on Facebook!

Oh, well, that's probably going to be sweet, a pic of us in happy times, maybe that day we biked down to the arboretum and...

Bwat???

It was a picture of a rat lying on its back in the dirt, its tail bent, its neck twisted back, teeth frozen in a dead vacant snarl. "Some days you're the dog," she'd written in the caption, "and some days you're the rat." And blam: today, the rat was named Garrit Fishbaum.

For a brief moment - a flash, really - I marvelled at her spunk, her nerve. The attention she was offering up to me was raw, even thrilling. Then I realized it was thrilling more in a Fatal Attraction kind of way. Yeesh!

This is what lovers have to look forward to with romance of the future: the spat is no longer in the bedroom, or even in the street - it's in THE FEEDS, yours and all your friends.

Anyway I detagged that crazy ass shit, but not without leaving a note behind:

It takes a long time, but God dies too
But not before he'll stick it to you.