Valentine's Day is over, so we can swing the pendulum away from all things romantic, chocolaty, couple-ish, and pink and red for a moment to examine the anti-valentine - the breakup. Breakups are awful all the way around for all involved, whether you are the one who does the breaking, you're on the receiving end of the "we need to talk" conversation, or you are one half of a mutual and amicable parting of ways. After any breakup, there is a mourning period. There is the requisite crying (girls), brooding (guys), not wanting to get out of bed, and either not eating or over eating. There is a definite process involved in the post-breakup period, and it's unique to everyone. The one commonality, though, is the pain - actual physical pain - created by the hole left in your life from not having 'your person' anymore, and the moving on from that pain. With the advent of Facebook, though, it seems nearly impossible to totally move forward.

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Usually, in order to dull the pain we feel, many create the illusion that their lost love simply doesn't exist anymore. We construct a new world for ourselves that includes everything but that person. It somehow offers comfort to think that the person is just, poof, gone. Not dead, but just not present. Anywhere. Eventually, either the pain fades or you just get used to it, and you start feeling like you might be over the hump. You can even pump yourself up by convincing yourself that you were the best thing that ever happened to them, and that while you are moving on and throwing your head back in fits of laughter that say "I don't need you, I'm moving on, and I'm fabulous" they are pining away.

Inevitably, though, your ex sneaks up in your consciousness in a way that snaps your head out of that laughing spell with a quickness. It happens when you smell their cologne, perfume, or deodorant, or hear a song, or go somewhere you both loved. You might hear from a friend that they are dating someone new, or, at the worst, you actually see them with their new significant other, and there you are again, right back in the thick of the pain. You feel your stomach somehow simultaneously in your abdomen and feet at the same time, and your shoulders tingle uncomfortably in a slight panic. You can deal with that moment, though, and get past it. Even better, you can avoid it by not talking to that friend or not going back to that place. You might have a handful of moments like this, and you can safely make it to the proverbial other side of the breakup without too many regressions.

That was all pre-Facebook, though. The social networking site has made it nearly impossible to have a "good" breakup. Every time you log in, which for many is several times a day, you are confronted with to-the-minute updates about your past love. Without wanting it, the news feed lets you know immediately whose wall they have most recently written on and when, when they changed their relationship status, and even gives you a little preview of pictures of them with their new boyfriend or girlfriend. This quick flash of information is more than enough to trigger the shoulder-tingle-panic, but somehow it also triggers the same instinct that makes it impossible to look away from a car accident. Suddenly all you want is to get a better, closer look at the car wreck, and in seconds, with just a few clicks you are at their profile - the Mecca of all the information you never wanted to know, but now can't pull yourself away from.

The shoulder-tingle-panic turns to nausea as you read the periodic messages and inside jokes your former one and only is trading with someone else. If you're really lucky, your ex has found themselves a full on Facebook addict, who leaves their profile open to those they aren't friends with, posts on their own profile every time they pee, posts on other people's profiles every time they exhale, and uses the Facebook wall as their primary mode of communication. (Pause for collective dry heave). In that case, not only do you have a running log of all of your ex's activity, but you also have narration to their new love story. (Let's not even get into the time you lose by examining, analyzing, and criticizing everything in the new person's profile - "I can't believe he's dating someone whose favorite movie is 'Gigli!"). You are no longer allowed to pretend that the person you used to love, and maybe still do, has been swallowed by a crack in the universe. You are forced to deal with the fact they want someone new - someone not you.

True, we are now living in a time when getting as much information about as much as possible, as quickly as we can is at a premium. Facebook has made it easy for us to stay updated on our friends' lives to the hour and minute, and has also enabled us to learn a wealth of information about those we barely know (stalking to some, but just curiosity to others - who hasn't looked at friends' of friends' profiles to kill time?). Is this always a good thing, though? Is it really healthy for us as humans with fragile psyches to be able to indulge the sick and backwards desire for information and imagery we know will hurt us, and then have to deal with the aftermath? Not to mention that there are those who use Facebook as a breakup weapon, and get disingenuously and publicly lovey dovey knowing their old flame will see it and be hurt. Do we really need this extra variable in what can already be an intensely difficult experience?

On the flip side, though, perhaps Facebook provides an inadvertent service by speeding up the aforementioned breakup process. Most people will say that part of getting through any difficult experience is truly feeling the pain. Putting off the discomfort with distractions may help for a while, but the only real way to "do" a breakup is to take the fire-walk by yourself and feel the flames. Only then can you get to the other side. Facebook makes you face that wall of fire (Get it? Wall?), and doesn't let you run away from it. Painful, yes, but maybe also weirdly cathartic. For some, this deep end approach might be just what the love doctor ordered, but for others, maybe the other, less technical route that shares it's name with a river in Egypt, is still best.

Story by Sarah Levin

Starpulse contributing writer