Facebook Shuts Down Breakup Notifier. Here Are 7 Other Ways to Stalk the Person You Love.

By Jen Doll Wed., Feb. 23 2011 at 5:34 PM

Damn. Just when we had the object of our unrequited affection all picked out and ready to begin one-sidedly and creepily interacting with on the Internet, we've learned that Facebook has dashed our fondest hopes of sweeping in immediately pending his breakup and making him ours, all ours! [Disclaimer: This man is purely hypothetical. Really.]

Anyway, as it happens, the 3.6 million users of Breakup Notifier are in our boat, too, since the app has been blocked by Facebook.

Via MSN's Technolog, Breakup Notifier's creator Dan Loewenherz was coldly notified of the breakup by email:

To ensure positive user experiences on Platform, we run routine automated screens that take user feedback, machine learning and various algorithms into account and remove spammy applications. For example, if an application is making an inordinate number of stream.publish calls and receiving a large number of user reports, it may be removed by our automated systems to protect the user experience and the Platform ecosystem.

Adding insult to injury, Facebook also locked him out of his personal account.

We're sure this is just some kind of horrible misunderstanding, but at least there are plenty of other ways to stalk the person you are planning on forcing to date you. For example:

1. Do it the old-school way, by constantly refreshing your beloved's Facebook page, which you keep in a separate open tab on your Web browser at all times.

2. Frequently refer back to your beloved's Facebook page until you memorize everything he or she has ever done or said and the way that orange sweater really makes the whites of his/her eyes pop, which makes you weep with joy and oh so much love.

3. Tell your beloved that. Everyone likes flattery!

4. Wait outside your beloved's office building to catch a glimpse of him or her mornings, nights, and during his/her lunch and/or smoking breaks. When you are noticed, fall to the ground so your beloved can help you up. Everyone wants to be needed!

5. Plan a big party but really only invite you and your beloved, and then pretend you got your dates mixed up, but not really. Tee hee.

6. Break into your beloved's apartment, steal a selection of his or her favorite things, and then save the day by calling to say that you found what you think are your beloved's belongings in a dumpster outside their apartment when you just "happened to be passing by."

7. Call your beloved "your beloved."

If all else fails, there's always the Lloyd Dobler treatment. But we're sure there will be another breakup app available before you get desperate.

[JDoll][@thisisjendoll]

We Recommend

bangozango

Oh wow, OK that makes a lot of sesne dude.

www.privacy-resources.at.tc

Trudy

This post would be funnier if most of these things and more have not already occured to me. However, since I am female, Iearned from others that I should be "glad" for the attention and it doesn't matter if social norms or laws were broken in the delivery of said attention. Thus, when I blog about these experiences, people seem perplexed. In a culture where attention is now money, who would reject currency? In the words of someone in the south guzzling down some delicious sweet tea, "chile please!" Some use social media to genuinely engage while others find it a great tool to behave in the stupid ways mentioned above, and Facebook facilitates that by creating new methods to alter social norms and reduce privacy.

Some things like genuine relationship building, privacy, respect, and the ability to decide how you will use your social media, not have it determined by someone else who feels entitled to attention (or more) from you is the only way this can work.

Privacy is just as important as socializing. We cannot survive and stay sane without both.