Scary

So you’re creepy. Okay. You’ve been pining for Mary Beth ever since the second grade when she threw a grape popsicle at your shirt and it got stuck there all through recess. You then went home and hid your popsicle-stuck shirt under your bed so you can revisit it, not much, just every once in awhile when you’re feeling really low. That’s not really weird. It’s just a thing you do.

It’s so frustrating that Mary Beth doesn’t even know you’re alive. It makes you feel all squirrelly in the head, really. You went through junior high with braces and acne, and that rash that made you look like the underside of an avocado — but just seeing Mary Beth’s face got you through the day. Now she’s married to fucking Josh. Of course she’s married to fucking ass-chapper, car dealer, gum-popping, dickfaced Josh. But she should really be married to you, and deep down she knows it. Little does she know, but she friended you on Facebook and you’ve been trading comments about pot pie recipes for weeks now. She probably doesn’t really remember you from high school what with the reduced inflammation and proliferation of the avocado’s ass rash. Lucky for you, you think her marriage to jackal-dicked Josh is on the skids, but how will you know when to make your move? You can’t just ask her when you smell her hair in the grocery store every Sunday.

Dan Loewenherz has designed the answer. The Facebook Breakup Notifier.

This app has one purpose, and one purpose only — to let the user know when the relationship status of those of their choosing has changed. That’s right. Now you no longer have to stumble upon the information by chance. Now you can spin merrily in front of your freaky bedroom shrines once you immediately find out that the, ahem, object of your desire is a single ready to mingle. What will you do? Congratulate them? Offer sympathy? Put that doll away and ask for a phone number? All of them!

The Breakup Notifier lets you log in, check off the friends you’re interested in, and then emails you once they’re no longer taken.

As reported in an interview with the Huffington Post, here’s what Lowenherz had to say about the new app’s genesis.

I got the idea on Friday night when my fiancee and her mom were talking about a guy to set up with my fiancee’s sister. Unfortunately, said guy was taken…so I asked them if they would want to get notified when he broke up. It was kind of a joke actually, but they loved it, and so on Saturday I spent about 4 hours building it out. I didn’t really tell anyone until yesterday.

I hope that people use it for good and not evil – it’s merely practical. If you’re going to check someone’s profile every day [to stalk them], you might as well get rid of the tedium and have the changes get delivered right to your inbox instead. When people don’t list their relationship status, Breakup Notifier reads it as “Unknown”. So if someone changes, you’ll get an email like the following:

“Hi Shirley,
Joe Shmoe has changed his relationship status to “Single” from “In a relationship”. Get on it!
Best,
The Breakup Notifier”

We totally needed something like this, because surely the internet and the Fooozebooks doesn’t already give out enough personal information. I suspect in the near future the advent of the “Maybe You Need a Pap Smear,” and the “You Fuck Like King Kong” apps are in the offing.

We can’t wait.

If you’re really interested [I won’t judge you, but I will check your trunk for skulls], here’s more information on the thing: Breakupnotifier.com

Happy hunting!