Removing Facebook Profile Pics

Dear Internet,

There is a rather trivial matter concerning Facebook profile pictures that I’ve been vaguely pondering for over a year now, and it’s high time I put it up for debate: Is there ever a good reason to remove a photo you’ve once used as your profile pic from the profile pic album? Or, more specifically, should you remove photos from your profile album that include pictures of ex-boyfriends or girlfriends?

I’ve always said no. I have no idea how I came to this arbitrary conclusion—I have no problem deleting other photos, wall comments, etc. But the ‘Profile Photos’ album has always struck me as sacrosanct. If a photo was deemed worthy of being your profile photo (for any length of time, I mean; we’re not talking you put it up and after a day have a change of heart), it must be representative of some time/look/ period/place for you. The profile photos album keeps a record of who you most thought you were, or what was most important to you, at any given time throughout your Facebook history. And the longer you’ve been on it—and I’ve been on it since the beginning, being part of the last class of the first widespread group that was able to join, back when Facebookers needed an .edu email address—the more of a personal historical timeline your Facebook profile pic album becomes. It seems like lying to yourself or maybe the world to alter this timeline.

Of course, when parts of this timeline include exes, it gets a little more complicated. Is it just plumb weird to leave up a photo of a happy couple of which you are no longer a part? And what if the breakup was a bad one—does it make a difference whether you and a pictured ex are still on speaking terms? What if you begin dating someone new—does that make it suddenly wrong to keep the profile pic album in tact with photos of past paramours? Or is it simply an acknowledgement that the past, you know, existed?

Perhaps it’s a matter of volume—if you’re someone for whom an occasional photo includes an other, fine; if every other pic is of you slobbering all over an ex, take ‘em down?

I’ve never been big on including other people in my profile pics (don’t get me started on parents who substitute photos of their kids for their own photos), so the number of my nearly 60 profile album photos containing exes numbers three (plus a phantom hand on my leg in one photo)—and up ’til now, I’ve left them there. My current boyfriend also has photos of him and his ex buried down at the bottom of his profile pic album. Fortunately, neither of us minds this terribly.

But is that the norm? I’m generally curious (along with a little embarrassed that I’ve taken five hefty paragraphs to air my inane question). So … what say you, folks? Any strong thoughts one way or the other?