But enough about my issues, let me tell a more interesting romanTECH tale of two friends: After a long-winded courtship where this lovely lady was forced to police her romeo, she finally locked it up on Halloween weekend with a HOT cop costume. That weekend he became a prisoner of her love and asked her to be his official girlfriend. The catch? He did it via Facebook status, simply changing his to read: "In a Relationship." Could anything be more romanTECH than digital sky-writing blasted across his newsfeed??? Well maybe if he hyperlinked to her....
But these strategies can also backfire. Another friend recently took the plunge updating their status to: "In a relationship," which induced a slew of comments on his wall from "this should last as long as your interest in Bikram Yoga" to the blatant "HAHAHAHAHAHA, when will these people learn?" You'll be surprised to know his relationship and status are still in tact. Seems like his other half does in fact believe people can change. Their status anyway.
But what I really wonder is if changing status is a purely romanTECH gesture? Or is it a self-inflicted digital cock-block really meant to ensure other romanTECH interests don't tempt us? Kind of like an anorexic dumping salt all over their food so they don't eat it. Okay that's not a pretty metaphor, but I bet you get it.
I believe there are three "good" reasons why someone would announce their relationship status via facebook. And I must preempt these examples with saying that I only agree with doing the first.
ReplyDelete1. Your engaged/married - This serves to notify your distant/estranged friends about a major and significant life change. It allows them to celebrate one of the best things that has happened to you - regardless of when they get around to checking your facebook page.
2. You got divorced - see reason #1. However the downside of this is a whole other post.
3. You passive aggressively want your man(or woman but let's be realistic about the stats)to identify what's going on in your relationship. Let me eloborate on my reasoning here with an anecdote:
A few months back I got a somewhat frantic phone call from my brother. He received a facebook notification wanting him to confirm that he in fact was in a relationship with the girl he was seeing. I uncovered that he wasn't and didn't intend to see anyone else and he really liked this girl. He revealed his desire to reject her invite because he wasn't sure that he wanted a girlfriend and had reservations about how long their relationship would last. And...he wasn't too keen about letting his recent ex know his relationship status either.
As a woman who fears any man having a man mislead me like that, I recommended that he give her a call and let her know he really liked her but had reservations about being BF/GF (boyfriend/girlfriend) seeing he was so newly out of a serious relationship.
End of the story: he accepted her request because "it was just easier" and she got what she wanted....at least until he ended it a few months later.
As a woman of a certain age, I will offer up that this is mostly a generational thing. I agree with the above poster that many folks merely post their status (I'm "In a Relationship") to let friends and family know what's happening in their lives. Nuff said right? With the younger set it's often a declaration or a tool to get what you want (or don't want, as the case may be).
ReplyDeleteReal good post. When I was dating that girl in Feb, March and April, when we became an item, I was like, uh, when do I update my Facebook profile? Will it freak her out? (We broke up before I got a chance to.)
ReplyDeleteAnd now of course, part of me wants to turn the single status off so I don't have that problem. (It seems a lot of single girls I know have already done that.) But if I do that, all my friends will get the status update and will be like SOOOOOO WHEN DID YOU MEET A GIRL?
You should do a post on how do you decide when to Facebook friend a person you just started dating...
Settings -> Privacy Settings -> Newsfeed and Wall -> uncheck "Change Relationship Status"
ReplyDeleteYour friends won't see a thing when you change it!
I know this is an old blog, but I love the friend who showed me this, so I thought I would share! :)
I am very much appreciate on your article.
ReplyDeleteThank you
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