It wasn't so long ago that Facebook was only for college students at fancy schools. But these days it's for everyone. And by everyone that means work acquaintances you don't necessarily want to share your life with, friends from college who will tag you in inappropriate pictures and high-school classmates who will spam you with the details of their young children. And, of course, everyone inevitably includes ex-girlfriends.

So what should you do when an ex reaches out and sends you a friend request? Read how friending your ex can result in a miserable cyber-life or wonderful, real-life sex, after the jump.



Reasons to accept an ex's friend request
Friending an ex proves to all of your Facebook friends, as well as to all of her Facebook friends, that whatever the circumstance of the break-up, you are now cool with it. Then if you are able to follow that up by never again using Facebook to contact her, YOU WIN AT DATING.

If you have any desire to get back together with an ex, whether it be for a couple hours or an extended period of time, gaining full access to her Facebook page will provide you with a plethora of information that can be stealthily used to make this happen.

While friending an ex can result in an ex-girlfriend and a current girlfriend friending each other and "comparing notes," there is a slight chance it could go down a completely different way. A little something the French like to call a ménage à trois.

Reasons to click ignore, or let it sit indefinitely in your notification box
Did you know a man in England stabbed his estranged wife to death because she changed her Facebook marital status to single? OK, so this isn't quite the same, but the bottom line is that one day you're throwing a lighthearted seasonal ham icon at an ex, and the next day her crazy new boyfriend is coming after you with a very real knife.

Maybe your ex is now dating someone who is clearly more aesthetically pleasing than you, and you have yet to begin dating someone clearly more aesthetically pleasing than her. In the past this was a scenario a mature adult could deal with. But if you friend her, you will find yourself drunk at 3 a.m, toggling through photos of the attractive new couple at various glamorous events. And weeping.

Or maybe your ex will upload photos of you making out then tag you to them, thus infuriating your current girlfriend.

Or maybe your ex updates her profile constantly, so every time you log in you end up reading about her.

The point is that there are a lot of ways, innocent or not, that an ex can make your online life miserable.

If at any point during your relationship with your ex you thought to yourself, "Man, this chick is completely insane," you should probably refrain from inviting her into your delicately balanced cyber-world.
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