By: Gina Volpe

New studies released show that one in five divorce petitions cites Facebook. Well, duh. Aside from the obvious conclusion that Facebook allows you to spot and then divorce the jerks who feature acoustic guitars in their default photos and post badly-written, inane status updates; communicating with your significant other on the Internet is always a terrible idea.

In the past, I tried to compensate for my extreme lack of social skills by limiting communication with people to e-mails, text messages, and AIM conversations. One night several years ago, I was chatting away with my (now-ex) boyfriend when he sent me a Facebook IM asking my preferred word for “vagina.” I thought he was being funny, so I replied that I really loved the word “twat.”

Online communication is not the best conveyor of tone, so I had no clue that he was genuinely inquiring as to what I would like him to call my particular vagina until a few days later when he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Baby, let me lick your twat.” (If you’re a dude, just know that this is the equivalent of your girlfriend telling you she wants to “suck your ding-dong.”) There’s not a relationship in the world that could withstand the lack of sexual attraction I felt for him from that moment on.

If not for the dire consequences resulting from our online conversations, I might not have had to banish my ex from my twat forever. Imagine these poor spouses logging into Facebook reading, “Katy Perry is a cool chick!” on their significant other’s profile and having no clue that it was meant to be TOTALLY sarcastic. Divorce papers might be filed before the miscommunication can even be explained.

Lets learn from this lesson and stop “friending” our relationship partners. If you’re together in real life, you don’t need to connect on the Internet too. You never know when a communication mix-up might kill the romance forever when your boyfriend tries to sexily refer to your vagina as a “twat.” Don’t take that chance. Additionally, logging onto Facebook and learning that your loved one is a crappy speller, a Farmville addict, or cheating on you with his high school girlfriend from 1994 can only harm the relationship.

Or, you know, “friend” away. At least when your marriage disintegrates there’ll be hundreds of other friends left for you to poke.