Technology Ruins Relationships

As we’ve all heard by now, John Mayer and Jen Aniston have (again) called it quits.  The major gossip magazines originally cited disagreements and busy work schedules as the reasons behind the split, but more recent reports have explained what the REAL reason behind the breakup might be: John’s obsessive Twittering.

Now, as anyone who follows him on Twitter knows, John Mayer is a bit of a Twitter addict—he updates his page almost hourly, sometimes even multiple times an hour.  But is that any reason to dump someone?  Apparently, according to Aniston, it is.  He claimed that he didn’t have any time for her, yet somehow still had time to update Twitter.  Ok, so that’s not cool: if a guy is putting more effort into an internet addiction than into your relationship, there’s definitely a problem there.

And the more I think about it, there’s definitely a lot of other annoying internet habits that could be relationship red flags.

1.  Guys who can’t spell – I don’t care if I sound like a total prude, but I can’t stand it when a guy’s Myspace or Facebook profile and his e-mails are filled with so many spelling errors that they’re almost impossible to understand.  I don’t mean the occasional typo, but constant mixing up of “there” and “their,” or “your” and “you’re.”

2.  Overuse of smilies and e-mail/texting shorthand – This kind of goes along with the spelling thing, but e-mails/texts that say things along the lines of: “cant w8 2 c u 2nite ” just annoy the heck out of me.  If I guy is too lazy to put in the effort of writing out a full sentence, how do I know that he’s going to put enough effort into our relationship? And, not to be rude, but any guy who uses smileys is a little too tween-girl for me.

3.  Chatting with other girls online – Now, I’m not saying a guy can’t have girl friends and post on their Facebook walls; I have lots of guy friends, and I’d be pretty pissed if my boyfriend suddenly got mad at me for talking to them online.  But if you notice your guy talking to random girls that you’ve never met (and maybe that he’s never met either) on the internet, it might be a problem, especially if he pays more attention to them than he does to you or if it seems like he’s hiding something when you ask him about it.

4.  Online Gaming Addictions – This sort of goes without saying, but there’s obviously something very wrong with any guy who would rather stay up all night playing games like Command and Conquer than playing with you.  You shouldn’t have to compete with virtual chicks for attention, so don’t even try.

5.  Obsessively E-mailing You — If a guy is constantly e-mailing you every five minutes asking you what you’re doing, why you haven’t e-mailed him back, etc… that’s super annoying.  Does it occur to these guys that I might be in class, at work, out with my friends, or maybe I just didn’t want to talk to him?  This sort of stalker-ish behavior is definitely a huge red flag.

What do you think?  What other sorts of annoying internet behaviors are relationship deal-breakers?