Did Facebook form out of unrequited love?

I recently saw the film The Social Network and it’s been playing on me ever since.

According to the film version of events, CEO Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook on the back of a bad breakup.

I can relate to being spurred on to create or do something meaningful after such a heavy emotional hit. Finding that creative space helps lift me out of the doldrums and get me back on track to reassuming my identity as a solo rather than part of a couple. Even if it's to prove this to myself alone.

In The Social Network’s opening scene, we watch as the character Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend are talking in a bar. Tension builds in the conversation and finally Mark’s girlfriend has had enough. He clearly doesn’t want her to end the relationship but it’s too late, she wants out and Mark’s left with little choice. He’s been dumped.

And so the story begins and now....we have Facebook.

As the film closes, Mark is on his own, contemplative, and we watch him at his laptop search for a profile name on Facebook. He taps in his ex girlfriend’s name and up pops a picture of a beautiful, young woman. It’s her.

Mark is tentative to sending her a ‘friend request’ but after a moment of hesitation we watch him click ‘send’. Every few moments he refreshes the screen. Is she online? Has she accepted his friend request?

This moment makes my heart swell. It reveals two things that are very real.

1. Money can’t buy love; and
2. It can be excruciatingly hard to halt a yearning heart.

Even for Mark Zuckerberg – the world’s youngest billionaire who arguably by society’s standards has it all. This closing scene suggests to me that he’d happily let it all go to win back the girl money can’t buy.