But others were less than thrilled with this new gizmo, particularly its addictive qualities. There were reports of breakups threatened and consummated over it. “Our marriage or your Sony,” one woman told her husband, who duly sold the Walkman to a bachelor friend. A young woman named December Cole, a sales executive at a beauty magazine, recalled a trip to Atlantic City with "a basically rude" man who wouldn't stop "bopping around to his own music."