The Ultimate Anti-Valentine’s Day guide to manage your “Blossoming relationship”
Each year we are bombarded with Valentine’s Day gift suggestions, photos of cuddly toys in roses and pet names from bubby sweetheart darling (all at once) to snookums. It’s enough to make anyone’s newsfeed feel nauseous. So what are some of the most un-romantic yet practical solutions to your Valentine’s Day activities?
By Eryk Bagshaw
Follow @Cybershack on Twitter
Each year we are bombarded with Valentine’s Day gift suggestions, photos of cuddly toys in roses and pet names from bubby sweetheart darling (all at once) to snookums. It’s enough to make anyone’s newsfeed feel nauseous.
So what are some of the most un-romantic yet practical solutions to your Valentine’s Day activities?
Nothing could be more romantic than signing a contract on Valentine’s Day.
You’ve heard of Pre-Nups, but now there’s a new form of pre-marriage legal agreement.
E-Nups are agreements couples can make before or during marriage that dictate when and where the use of technology is allowed. Some couples are in the process of making these legally binding.
In the age of the ever-present smartphone, the E-Nup attempts to stop couples from losing that incredibly valuable interpersonal time. The agreement can be extended to include times that are appropriate to use technology around their children or even friends.
If no amount of E-Nup or pet name calling can save your relationship then it might be time to spend the afternoon looking at the Facebook Algorithm that predicts if your relationship will fail.
Late last year Facebook and Cornell University developed a formula to predict whether a couple is likely to break up within the next 2 months.
How?
They took a data set of 1.3 million FB users and found that the more mutual friends you have with your significant other, also known as ‘Low Dispersion’ then the more likely you are to break up within the next two months.
Those with high-dispersion, friend groups that aren’t mutually connected are less likely to break up.
The research found that this formula particularly applies to relationships that are approximately 12 months old.
So watch out all you incestuous friend group relationship hoppers – this one might come back to bite you. Ba Humbug.
If the Facebook Formula rings true – then there are some steps you can take to limit continuing pain.
1. Download the App KillSwitch – It removes all traces of your ex from your Facebook by deleting pictures, videos, wall posts, and status updates that tagged the two of you together. Ironically enough, it was released on Valentine’s Day.
2. Put a Google alert in place for your name – if your ex decides to post anything about you on the internet this means that you’ll be able to stop it in its tracks before it becomes too wide spread
3. Change your relationship status to private – in fact, it’s probably best to do this from the get-go, no one needs to be watching you that closely.
4. Download the ‘Don’t Drink & Dial App’ – Yep, everyone’s done it after a few too many Shiraz’s. This app will actually block you from drunk dialling your ex and save you a whole load of embarrassment.
5. Change all social media passwords – better to be safe than sorry
Follow @erykbagshaw on Twitter
