In Your FACE! … book

Are you friends with your significant other on Facebook? Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn, authors of You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, are most definitely NOT Facebook friends and their marriage is all the stronger for it. What’s this about? You guessed it, smart acceptance of type difference.

Annabelle’s a T and Jeff is an F. Which in personality type theory means she’s unsentimental and he’s a schmaltzy romantic. How does this translates into real life? He decided the moment he saw her that she was going to be his wife, whereas she took about five years to warm to the idea of him being a romantic partner.

So, it is with surprise to both of them that when she discovers his Facebook activities, she is actually jealous. Jeff is an avowed flirt, and most of his friends appear to be ex-girlfriends. Plus, he has no photos of his spouse on his Facebook page (Interestingly, mine doesn’t either) But like a good logical T, after she gets upset and mistakenly posts her disapproval on his Wall, she does the logical thing — she defriends him. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

Jeff is very surprised by the jealousy. “I have actually imagined that I could be sitting on our couch making out with a girl when Annabelle would come home, take one look at us, and sigh dejectedly, “I just had the worst audition,” and then go upstairs without batting an eye. And here she was bent out of shape and jealous about the girls on my Facebook pages, and that made me feel really, really … good. After all these years, she truly cares.”

Is this the healthiest thing? I dunno, but it makes sense for them. Privacy and space. And I get it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It’s nice to have your own space, your own life and interests beyond your partners so that there is something to talk about when you get home at the end of the day.