November 4, 2010 | 7:43 am

Facebook Can Predict Break Ups: Buy Wine, Stock Kleenex & Start Farmville

Posted by Ilana Angel

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Created by Rob Cottingham

Have you ever been dumped out of the blue?  Completely blindsided?  I have and it’s brutal.  It knocks you on your ass and can take forever to recover from.  When it happened to me, I cried like a lunatic and it was not the pretty, tears falling in slow motion down your cheek, beautiful cry, but rather the sobbing, snotty, blotchy faced, gross cry.

Imagine how great it would be if you knew ahead of time that you were getting the boot.  You could have a ton of Kleenex in your purse and a bottle of wine ready at home so the second you walk in the door, the drowning of your sorrow can begin.  You could have the perfect response ready to knock the wind out of your dumper’s sails.  It would be awesome.

Thanks to Facebook, women all over the world can be one step close maintaining their dignity when being dumped because there will be no shock. Journalist David McCandless recorded 10,000 status updates for the keywords “break up” or “broken up”, and discovered that spring and pre-Christmas are when you are most likely to get dumped.

McCandless is a British journalist and graphic designer who compiles data in interesting visual ways.  He’s done some pretty cool stuff and you can take a look at his website at David McCandless.  His new book “Information is Beautiful” is fantastic.  The idea that data can be art is really wonderful and I am going to order the book.

Bravo to McCandless for giving the heads up on being dumped, and then providing something interesting to read while we are at home with our wine, Kleenex, and 18 cats, wallowing in self pity.  Clearly he’s a giver.  You’ve got to love Facebook.  Where else can you create your own farm, be friends with people you don’t know, and know when you are getting dumped?

According to this scientific data, the two times during the year where you are most likely to get dumped, are right after Valentine’s Day and before spring break.  Really? These times are so predictable maybe that is why they work.  It’s obvious so you think it won’t happen, then when it does you are in shock that the person you love has such massive balls.

To clarify, you spend Valentine’s Day with your lover, get sucked into the holiday, are convinced it’s love, and then as soon as Valentine’s Day is over, and you are walking around on a cloud, you’re dumped.  Or, as you plan to spend spring break together, you are dumped so he can fly off on holiday with his buddies and screw around without the guilt of us being at home.

Granted these times of the year are probably skewed to younger folks because I don’t know a lot of 40 something people updating their Facebook status updates to include a break ups, but you can assume these young kids will one day be 40 something and their pathetic dumping patterns could very well carry on to when they are grown ups.

According to the chart, another popular dumping time is about two weeks before Christmas.  That’s just wrong.  And cheap.  Seriously people just hang on until after the New Year.  Suck it up.  You are screwing up your karma by dumping someone right before Christmas.  Even for Jews this is bad.  Who will take us to the movies and out for Chinese food?  Selfish.

Monday is the most popular dumping day, which is perfect.  The one day that is already horrible now has a big black cloud hanging over it.  Summer and Fall are the safety zones in terms of break ups and the one specific day of the year you are probably safe is Christmas Day.  That’s because you’ve already been dumped and are alone so there is nobody to dump you.

The dumping season has begun.  It could happen at any moment so be prepared.  Have a bottle of wine standing by and keep Kleenex in your car, home, and purse.  Start a farm on Facebook so you can stay busy, keep the phone number and driving directions to the local animal shelter handy so you can race out and get a cat, and remember to keep the faith.

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