Yo Try to look at the photo objectively, as if you were seeing it for the first time. It's just me in the foreground: windswept, grinning with all my teeth, radiantly happy behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Behind me is a beach scene where sand meets water and sky. People frolic in the waves; a lone seagull flies overhead in an expanse of the palest blue. If you stay too long, you might wonder what the angle of my body is: not directly towards the camera, but half turned, as if I'm leaning towards something. You might ask about the blurry white whisper in the bottom right corner, as if a ghost had just walked out of the frame. Which, by the way, is not that far from the truth.
When this photo was originally taken, there was another protagonist: my ex-boyfriend. We both posed for the selfie in that version, with my arm around his shoulders and his wide smile matching mine. I don't remember where it was taken (presumably somewhere in the UK, due to my decision to wear a jumper), but I do know, just by looking at it, that we were very, very happy at the time. It's a perfect moment frozen in time, imbued with so much love, joy and potential that it's hard to look at it directly knowing what came next: the abrupt, unexpected ending; the dissolution of eternity into a brief, tear-stained conversation on the couch.
Still, looking at the modified version is no easier. First of all, it's just creepy. Secondly, it causes a plummet in my stomach similar to that feeling you get on a roller coaster when you plummet, the loss of gravity leaving you untethered and vaguely nauseous.
I created this “new and improved” snapshot of the alternate universe, courtesy of “Ex-Terminator,” a collaboration between dating site OkCupid and photo editing software Photoroom. Billed as “the world's first AI-powered ex deletion tool,” it's free and easy to use: simply upload a photo of you and your ex, click and drag the deletion cursor over your ex-lover, and watch them disappear magically (art imitating life, in this case).
The tool was developed in response to OkCupid research that found that 54 percent of Generation Z and 50 percent of millennial singles have a photo of themselves that they would like to delete an ex from. About 41 percent of the 185,000 respondents said they were motivated to remove their ex from a photo to get over a breakup.
“Whether to heal and move on or to save a good photo, millions of people want to delete their exes from old photos,” says Lauren Sudworth, brand director at Photoroom. Michael Kaye, Director of Communications at OkCupid, highlights the benefits of retrieving a photo for use on a dating app: “When it comes to getting your dating app profile summer-ready, we partnered with Photoroom to make sure your exes are not. getting in the way of any good photo.” Oh.
While black mirror Metaphors are inevitable, perhaps it evokes more Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry's seminal 2004 film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, which explores a world in which humans can pay for a procedure to erase all of someone's memories. The film beautifully examines the complexities of trying to “kill” an ex, including the question of whether we are doomed to repeat our mistakes if we don't remember them, and the idea that no matter how much someone hurts us, there are swaths of good memories. which would be nothing short of tragic to lose.
Removing an ex from a photo is not removing your memory of them, of course. But there's something about that process (and, similarly, about throwing away all of someone's memories) that feels deeply symbolic. As if they were trying to pretend they never existed. Like she was trying to pretend that erasing his face would take away the pain.
“All relationships are part of our developing journey and learning curve,” says Jo Coker, counseling psychologist and director of therapy and training standards at COSRT. While he says that getting rid of images, messages and love letters can be useful “if you get stuck revisiting them and thinking about the relationship without being able to move forward,” he highlights that “not all of our past relationships are full of bad memories even if they end.” . It’s good to be able to take the positive out of the time we spend together, so don’t rush to destroy.”
There are very different approaches to dealing with the physical evidence of a relationship after a breakup. I know some who take the total scorched earth approach, eradicating every last bit of evidence of love and rewriting their past without their former partner. A friend recently experienced an unexpected negative consequence of this strategy, getting back together with her former flame after a seven-month hiatus. Before the reconciliation, still heartbroken, she had asked her sister to delete all of her messages, as well as all of her photographs, from her phone. “Now I will never get them back,” she said sadly. “That part of our relationship is gone forever.”
All relationships are part of our journey and learning curve that develops us.
Jo Coker, counseling psychologist
This is, conversely, why many of us choose to delete them: because holding on to memories becomes a symptom of holding on to the hope that someone will change their mind and rekindle the relationship. I desperately kept a homemade birthday card from an ex in his twenties “just in case” he realized he couldn't live without me. I kept thinking how happy I would be if I hadn't abandoned him when we inevitably reunited and spent the next 50 years happily married. Suffice to say, that never happened: I remember the release and relief the day I finally let it fall into the trash, like a much lower version of Frodo watching the One Ring fall into the fires of Mount Doom.
But since then, I have not sought to destroy those physical manifestations of past love. The various notes and cards are kept in a keepsake box. The WhatsApps are archived but still exist. The photos stay on my phone. Coker agrees that taking your time to weigh what to do may be the best approach: “I would say don't rush into deciding what you're going to do with memories of past relationships. Maybe put the physical reminders in a box and stop reviewing them until time passes, and then decide what to keep or not.”
Her general advice is to avoid rushing to move on after a breakup. “Take the time to heal and develop your inner strength and self-confidence,” she adds. “Use the space as a time for reflection, personal growth and development. Ending a relationship can be painful and you need to acknowledge that and be kind to yourself.”
I try to run more photos through the Ex-Terminator tool, just to see how it feels. We at a concert became next to a blank space; the double act shot at a festival transforms into a solo selfie. Smiling and alone, I stand next to a black hole of nothingness, an abyss shaped like him. I use a photo with a less recent ex to see if it still seems as strange and empty, but that one turns out even worse: the orange hat he was wearing that day in the Highlands stubbornly refuses to be removed no matter how many times I drag the tool over it . The end result is disturbing. It's as if the lingering memory of him is fighting back; like him really is a ghost, one more determined to haunt me the more I try to eliminate it.
In fact, the whole experience, instead of being cathartic, triggers a feeling of strangeness. Unstable is the best description I have for it. Just because those men no longer physically exist in those photos, they exist in my memories. I can't look at that beach photo and forget who I was with, forget the way they made me feel, forget the dizzying moments of loving someone so passionately. And the more time passes, the less I want to do it.
Life is a mosaic of pleasure and pain, delight and disappointment; None of this makes sense in isolation. I wouldn't be who I am today without each of the relationships (and heartbreaks) that shaped me. Those experiences sharpened and softened the person I became, like a Polaroid developing in front of your eyes (to continue the photography metaphor), the contours becoming clearer and the colors deeper as you look.
And then I decide that willpower I delete some photos, namely the creepy versions of the serial killer without my exes. The originals can stay, to be pulled out from time to time and wept and marveled at before returning them to cold storage. Forgiven, yes, but not forgotten.
