HomoTech :: It Takes Two to Tweet
HomoTech :: It Takes Two to Tweet
by Oscar Raymundo
EDGE Contributor
Monday Apr 5, 2010
My ex-boyfriend was hooked on Twitter. He would tweet on his way to work, when waiting in line at the movies and whenever something got on his nerves, including, sometimes, me. I didn’t mind so much him micro-documenting his life; it was amusing to get an insight into whatever thoughts were swimming around in his head. But there’s a reason he’s my ex-boyfriend...
About two months into our relationship, I began noticing a pattern. He began tweeting back and forth with one of our friends--a friend that had expressed a crush on him before we even got together.
And, of course, being the possessive type, my Spidey sense went off. I confronted my then-boyfriend about it, and he reassured me that they were nothing but a spattering of random comments. The only suspicious or inappropriate part was it kept happening! They’d even engage in string conversations of replied Twitter statuses; Twitter tango-ing, I called it.
To ease my discomfort, my boyfriend gave me free reign to check his updates and any other messages he was sending to our friend. At the time, that was enough to clear my doubts. I decided that it was best to trust my boyfriend and not make an issue out of 140 characters. After all, my boyfriend was free to tweet his way around town.
A few weeks after, however, without notice, my boyfriend blocked me from viewing his Twitter updates. And this time, I flipped out.
"I just need some space," he reassured.
"But you’re going to vent about me," was my instant reaction.
"No, I won’t. I promise." And so I reluctantly gave him his Twitter-space. Being blocked didn’t really give me a choice, but I would be lying if I say I didn’t contemplate hacking into his account. I do live in San Francisco, after all. I figured it would take only one Craigslist ad: "Breaking into my boyfriend’s account," to find a freelance hacker that would do me the favor.
Much to no one’s surprise, my boyfriend and I broke up shortly after he blocked me. The surprise came when I found out (not through Twitter, thank god) that my ex and the friend began "seeing each other" immediately after the break-up.
I also found out that even though my ex-boyfriend’s Twitter updates were inaccessible to me, I could still take a peek at his linked TwitPic account, the site that uploads and stores all of your Twitter pictures. No hacking required, just TwitPic.com/photos/TWITTERUSERNAME. Did I mention that I can get a little bit possessive?
Although to this day, I am still not exactly sure what went on behind my ex-boyfriend’s blocked Twitter doors, his TwitPics revealed more than 140 characters. They revealed my initial suspicions with the sound of a thousand words. They type of words you’d expect from someone who blocks themselves from their partner and begins direct-messaging with someone else.
We may have new ways of communicating and expressing ourselves, but technology is still only what we make of it. And it’s constantly being filtered through our human experience. Technology like Twitter works best as an extension of our natural behavior. We can still rely on our instincts and trust our intuition to decipher the message regardless of the technology or medium. And if it feels wrong on a medium as short, superficial and fleeting as Twitter, then it might be time to sign off.
by Oscar Raymundo
EDGE Contributor
Monday Apr 5, 2010
My ex-boyfriend was hooked on Twitter. He would tweet on his way to work, when waiting in line at the movies and whenever something got on his nerves, including, sometimes, me. I didn’t mind so much him micro-documenting his life; it was amusing to get an insight into whatever thoughts were swimming around in his head. But there’s a reason he’s my ex-boyfriend...
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ShareAbout two months into our relationship, I began noticing a pattern. He began tweeting back and forth with one of our friends--a friend that had expressed a crush on him before we even got together.
And, of course, being the possessive type, my Spidey sense went off. I confronted my then-boyfriend about it, and he reassured me that they were nothing but a spattering of random comments. The only suspicious or inappropriate part was it kept happening! They’d even engage in string conversations of replied Twitter statuses; Twitter tango-ing, I called it.
To ease my discomfort, my boyfriend gave me free reign to check his updates and any other messages he was sending to our friend. At the time, that was enough to clear my doubts. I decided that it was best to trust my boyfriend and not make an issue out of 140 characters. After all, my boyfriend was free to tweet his way around town.
A few weeks after, however, without notice, my boyfriend blocked me from viewing his Twitter updates. And this time, I flipped out.
"I just need some space," he reassured.
"But you’re going to vent about me," was my instant reaction.
"No, I won’t. I promise." And so I reluctantly gave him his Twitter-space. Being blocked didn’t really give me a choice, but I would be lying if I say I didn’t contemplate hacking into his account. I do live in San Francisco, after all. I figured it would take only one Craigslist ad: "Breaking into my boyfriend’s account," to find a freelance hacker that would do me the favor.
Much to no one’s surprise, my boyfriend and I broke up shortly after he blocked me. The surprise came when I found out (not through Twitter, thank god) that my ex and the friend began "seeing each other" immediately after the break-up.
I also found out that even though my ex-boyfriend’s Twitter updates were inaccessible to me, I could still take a peek at his linked TwitPic account, the site that uploads and stores all of your Twitter pictures. No hacking required, just TwitPic.com/photos/TWITTERUSERNAME. Did I mention that I can get a little bit possessive?
Although to this day, I am still not exactly sure what went on behind my ex-boyfriend’s blocked Twitter doors, his TwitPics revealed more than 140 characters. They revealed my initial suspicions with the sound of a thousand words. They type of words you’d expect from someone who blocks themselves from their partner and begins direct-messaging with someone else.
We may have new ways of communicating and expressing ourselves, but technology is still only what we make of it. And it’s constantly being filtered through our human experience. Technology like Twitter works best as an extension of our natural behavior. We can still rely on our instincts and trust our intuition to decipher the message regardless of the technology or medium. And if it feels wrong on a medium as short, superficial and fleeting as Twitter, then it might be time to sign off.
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