Facebook broke my heart

(Matthew J. Lee / Globe Staff) Kristin O'Neill of Quincy says Facebook ruined her relationship.

Kristin O'Neill blames Facebook for her recent breakup. O'Neill, a financial worker from Quincy, created an account on Facebook.com this year after hearing about the social networking site's popularity from her boyfriend and friends. What she found on the site was the stuff of a bad Lifetime channel movie: Her guy had created two separate profiles. He posted salacious comments on other women's photos, and he claimed he was in an open relationship. With printouts of his photo comments, O'Neill confronted her boyfriend of two years. He confessed. She dumped him.

O'Neill, 25, has experienced firsthand Facebook's power to sour relationships. "It can be misused and abused," she said. "It's an easy way for guys to try and not get caught. Girls too. It gives motive to snoop. It's just awful."

Facebook has introduced millions of people to new friends online and expanded social circles. But the site is also creating new social dilemmas for couples: What do you do when an old flame finds you on the site and requests to be friends? How does that sudden blast from the past affect your current relationship? Do tensions arise when you see an old boyfriend or girlfriend or an unfamiliar face listed among your significant other's friends?

The topic is gaining currency as former high school classmates, college crushes, and exes increasingly rediscover each other online. As Facebook mushrooms in popularity - there are now 120 million active users - so has the number of these instant reunions, which are causing headaches and annoyances for couples.

For some people, learning that a partner is chatting with former love interests is too close for comfort. With its awkward intersection of the present and the past, Facebook has become a third wheel to real-world relationships.

"It's easier to find people," said Charles Lindholm, professor of anthropology at Boston University, where he teaches a class on romance. "You can have these extensive networks that you didn't have in the past. When your old girlfriend in high school can look you up and start a conversation with you, it might be from a distance but it is still a conversation. It's part of a larger thing, the networking of the middle-class world."

These Facebook flirtations are stirring debates online. At least a dozen discussion groups on the site and on personal blogs deal with the topic. Message boards declare: "Facebook Ruins Relationships." In one forum, a member confessed: "A three-year relationship ruined . . . if it weren't for Facebook, I would have never known he was sneaking around with other girls. . . . It's pretty much the new form of cheating."

Christy Putnam blogged about the issue in an entry called "Facebook, past relationships, guilty pleasures." Although Facebook didn't contribute to her recent split with her ex-boyfriend, Putnam said she enjoys using the site to search for her former crushes and old flames.

"It has brought me back into contact with my ex-boyfriends and some people from high school. I have found people I haven't spoken to in decades," said Putnam, a 33-year-old financial planner from Salt Lake City. "It's voyeuristically thrilling for me to peek in on their lives. I can see their updated pictures of their family. It's been really cool for me."

That wasn't exactly the inaugural spirit behind Facebook when it was founded in a dorm room at Harvard University in 2004. The site was envi sioned as an online version of the paper facebooks that were distributed at colleges at the beginning of the school year to help students get to know one another. Since then the site has evolved, expanding to high schools and then the general public. Thirtysomething employees and their baby boomer bosses have embraced the site as a way to connect with colleagues and friends.

"Americans have always been more mobile," said Lindholm, the BU professor. "Now the mobility doesn't necessarily lead to lost connections from your past. It's getting more like a society that people are always connected."

The site's boom has brought new features and complaints. In 2006 Facebook introduced "News Feed," a service that broadcasts changes and updates in users' profiles to each of their friends. If someone adds a friend, comments on a photo, or sends a virtual gift to another member, their friends are instantly alerted.

An information technology specialist and blogger named Gabriel said he uses Facebook to keep track of ex-boyfriends through their stream of updates. He regularly catches up with them in spite of being in a committed relationship.

"I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing," said the 36-year-old Cambridge man, who did not want his last name published because his boyfriend does not know he is connecting with exes online. "Then again, my boyfriend is not on Facebook, which makes it a lot easier to "poke" or flirt with random people, ex-boyfriends. I love the fact that Facebook lets me do that."

Some Facebook users said they don't mind if their better half engages in conversations with former romantic interests. They believe the initial rush of reconnecting with an old friend fizzles out after a few exchanges.

Nicole Espinosa, 20, of Brighton knows that her boyfriend of two years, Jacob Hampton, chats with ex-girlfriends and old crushes from their native Colorado. It doesn't bother her, because she's alerted whenever he befriends someone or posts a comment. Still, she considers the site an online busybody.

"It can be a little invasive at times," Espinosa said. "As much as I see what he does online, he can see everything that I do. If we had been dating for a few months, I wouldn't feel so confident. It just really depends on the relationship. When you are in the first part of the relationship, you pay attention to little things like that."

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com