Tell No One

Interesting article in the New York Times (via Double X) about the difficulties of severing contact with former boy- or girlfriends after a breakup, in the bold new age of social networking.

We've probably all heard by now about the strange awkwardness of breaking up with someone by changing your Facebook status to 'single,' and become somewhat familiar with the way that social networking, like a small town, can ensure that everyone in a circle of friends knows everyone else's business.

I can see how this would add layers of complexity to already difficult circumstances, and it's of modest but not pressing interest to me.

The part of the article that does surprise me is the line "Sharing passwords to e-mail accounts, bank accounts and photo-sharing sites is the new currency of intimacy."

Hm. I am dubious. Do people really do this? Just say, 'here are my email passwords--check it out'?

By this standard, I am without intimacy in my marriage. I share my passwords with no one. No one!

Not even for little things like Hulu or Amazon. My passwords are mine alone. Sometimes I sit in my room turning them over and over in my mind and hissing "my preciousssssss."

Then I make a swallowing noise in my throat. It's just so delicious.

Granted, this privacy would become problematic if I died suddenly. My online bank account would be troublesome to access. Good luck straightening out the details of my retirement accounts and so forth. And if you wanted to gather some of my photos from Picasa, go through my half-written fiction, try to assemble the details of what I was working on so you could finish my important e-book cataloging project, well, that would be tough too.

Start guessing!

Anyway, I don't know. Do my spouse and I have a sad and distant relationship, with our separate social networking accounts and secret passwords?

That's what you call a rhetorical question, I guess, since I'm not particularly interested in changing things even if someone tells me the answer is "yes." I just find the idea of sharing that kind of information a little weird.

But I know different people have different levels of comfort, and if someone else thinks it's totally cool to swap Facebook passwords with their significant other, and finds it a little weird that I huddle in the dark clutching mine close to my chest as if they could save me from the harsh grip of true intimacy, well, as long as they're not married to me (and as far as I know they aren't), it's no concern of mine.

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