RMG Founder Kris Ruby was recently featured in The NY Post on staying connected with your ex’s after a break-up. Read the full article in The NY Post here
Appearing happy on Facebook won’t help your break-up
By Jennifer Wright, NY Post
The next time you’re tempted to show your ex how totally over your breakup you are by posting pictures on Facebook that show you frolicking on the beach with a new suitor, hold off.
Putting on a brave face after a split is nothing new. However, in these social-media-savvy days, people are putting that face online, and it’s not doing anyone much good.
“Staying connected with your exes on social media and bombarding them with a false sense of ‘happy’ or ‘sexy’ selfies is becoming a popular cultural phenomenon,” says Kris Ruby, the social media expert for the Ruby Media Group. “After a breakup, people are increasingly feeling more pressure to make it look like they are doing great on their social media accounts.”
But, she cautions, “I don’t think someone would see a photo of their ex Jet Skiing and think they made the wrong decision about the breakup . . . I strongly feel it always has the opposite effect.”
It can, however, succeed in hurting a past lover and diminishing what you had with them in the first place.
“It makes someone think you moved on faster than they did, and that the relationship wasn’t as meaningful to you as it was to them,” Ruby says.
Amanda Chatel, a 36-year-old blogger from the East Village, definitely fell victim to the trend. After her 2012 breakup, she felt a huge impetus to show her former flame that she was great.
“I hate to admit it, but I actually started my Instagram account to prove to my ex I was fine,” she says. “Oh, look at me being fine in Paris. Oh, now I’m fine in Barcelona. Oh, I’m so fine on this yacht in Lake Como. These aren’t tears. These are splashes of Champagne on my face as I celebrate how fine I am.”
It didn’t make her ex want to jump on a plane to be with her, but he took notice. “He’d occasionally send a drunken e-mail . . . acknowledging something I’d posted,” she recalls.
But it didn’t necessarily make her feel good. “I felt both sad and sort of satisfied that he was falling into my trap. I’d set up that Instagram for him, and voilà, there he was responding! But then I’d remember we were broken up and get shaky and cry.”
Courtney Boyd Myers, 29, the founder of audience.io, a digital marketing company, says that her ex’s reaction was also negative.
“In the early days after my recent breakup, I was sad but would only post happy things,” says Boyd Myers, a Williamsburg resident who ended a four-year relationship last April. “This angered him because he was seeing this upset side of me when no one else was.”
Rather than posting photos of the amazing summer you’re having with a new boyfriend or girlfriend (or someone you just met on Tinder) to show your ex that you have moved on, Ruby says the smartest strategy for all parties is to unfriend one another on Facebook, Instagram and the like. That’s the easiest way to really move on.
“In order to grieve and truly move on you need that time of separation, which includes social media separation as well,” she says.
“When you have finally moved on, you can refriend them.”
*Article reprint from NY Post, by Jennifer Wright.
KRIS RUBY is the CEO of Ruby Media Group, an award-winning public relations and media relations agency in Westchester County, New York. Kris Ruby has more than 15 years of experience in the Media industry. She is a sought-after media relations strategist, content creator and public relations consultant. Kris Ruby is also a national television commentator and political pundit and she has appeared on national TV programs over 200 times covering big tech bias, politics and social media. She is a trusted media source and frequent on-air commentator on social media, tech trends and crisis communications and frequently speaks on FOX News and other TV networks. She has been featured as a published author in OBSERVER, ADWEEK, and countless other industry publications. Her research on brand activism and cancel culture is widely distributed and referenced. She graduated from Boston University’s College of Communication with a major in public relations and is a founding member of The Young Entrepreneurs Council. She is also the host of The Kris Ruby Podcast Show, a show focusing on the politics of big tech and the social media industry. Kris is focused on PR for SEO and leveraging content marketing strategies to help clients get the most out of their media coverage.