It is Halloween so I guess I need to bring the horror. Real horror, not Old Media murder stats like 41% of Brits regularly read a blog, or that I don’t have a new Macbook Pro yet.

So I bring you Heartbreak Horror. Also known as how to break-up digitally once you’ve done it personally. This is the real terror, the days and weeks of re-discovered couple icons, shared webpages and worst of all un-following and changing your personal status all over the place.

For two hyper-connected people, the process is indeed nothing short of a horror show. So, as your dedicated Canadian Tech-Education Blogger, I am living through the process merely so I can provide you with a roadmap for your own bumpy future. Since, like it or not, heartbreak is something that just happens in life.

FACEBOOK
Just remove relationship status information. Whatever you do, never change your status to single. That is like emitting a beacon that commands all the people you don’t really know or like to contact you with questions like: “R U ok????”

COMPUTER
Buy a new computer. This might sound drastic but it is the best way to instantly have an appliance that is free of painful reminders. Set the old one aside until you feel up to backing up all those photos, emails and videos. This solution might also be born of my fangirl desire for the new Macbook Pro.

TWITTER
Stop following your former paramour for sure. The last thing you need is constant updates of each others activities. The friends and family following is where you have to rethink what happens in real life. I don’t think it is necessary to divvy them all up. Personally, I feel Twitter is an ideal way to not lose contact with people you have met through past relationships. You can monitor what they are up to and then, when it feels right, renegotiate the friendships. Mostly, un-following en masse in Twitter just feels godforsaken and wrong.

OTHER SOCIALNETS
If your accounts on Brightkite, 12seconds.tv, or Friendfeed are new and insubstantial just leave them behind and re-up under a new name. If you have deep roots on another socialnet and/or you have your first name as your username and don’t want to give it up, then follow the Twitter guidelines.

EMAIL ACCOUNTS
The unspeakable evil of having active shared (name and/or content) email accounts is without parallel. The only way to go is to forward the content elsewhere while you let people know and shut it down. Ditto for shared calendars.

ONLINE CONTENT
Here you are powerless. All the cultural products about you two as a couple — from tender photographs to buoyantly optimistic blog posts — are there for good. Even if you have access to deleting them there is something immoral in all that, like a lie. I, for one, have no regrets about loving and losing.

And I am, after all, a huge horror fan.