How Facebook is Changing Dating
In high school, it was very easy to know if you were in a relationship. One person asked another person if they wanted to go out, they said yes, and boom, a couple was formed. Once I graduated, that line was not so clear. That’s when you start “dating” people. You can date several people at one time, and both parties are aware of this, so it’s a little tougher to figure out when you go from “dating” to “in a relationship”.
I’ve never had to discuss this with my boyfriends in the past, eventually, you just kinda know that you are committed to each other, and start calling each other “boyfriend and girlfriend”.
Facebook has changed all this. When I signed up to Facebook, I set my relationship status to “single” because I was, and I wanted people to know that in case they knew someway to change it.
About a year ago, I was “dating” some guy we’ll call Jim. We dated for about 2 months or so, and, from experience, 3 months is usually where the “boyfriend/girlfriend” thing comes into play. It was a little more complicated for us because we had friends in common. At the 2 month mark, I started wondering about my Facebook status. Do we now have to have a “Facebook Status” talk? What if he wasn’t ready to commit? Was that how we were going to announce to our friends that we were a couple?
Thinking I could avoid this, I decided to remove my relationship status completely. This way, I figured, the “relationship” part would come naturally. What I didn’t realise at the time, was that removing your status from Facebook puts a note in your friends’ feed saying “FitDarcie is no longer single”. Oops. This turned up in his feed. I KNEW I was not in a commited relationship, technically, but I was afraid that he would think I was either jumping to conclusions too quickly or in a relationship with someone else. I made the decision not to talk about it with him.
Recently, in my post about 20 year old hussies are ruining my life, I talked about a high school friend whose relationship I knew about because he updated his status on Facebook. So I asked him how he made the choice to change it. Apparently, they had the “Facebook Status” talk. She brought it up. 20-year-olds have so much more balls than I do.
So I guess that is part of our culture now. A Facebook Status talk. One the same lines, I’ve very curious about how I’m going to tell prospective boyfriends about this blog.
FYI- Jim never spoke to me ever again after I changed my Facebook status.
September 14th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I have had the facebook/myspace relationship status discussion before. When the discussion is going on you feel like it is by far the dumbest conversation you have ever been in. It reduces you to feeling like a 14 year old. It is the new age version of the do you like me check a box…
The thing is the discussion needs to happen because the sheer amount of bullshit that goes on if you don’t have it. People question that level of your relationship, the other person gets questioned.
God I hate the internet. The next girl I date is going to be Amish.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
If ‘Jim’ was enough of a ponce to jump ship over something that trivial then I’d consider that a bullet dodged.
I’ve seen people having fights and their fb relationship status going back and forth with the little heart and the little broken heart. Its annoying and indicative of a pretty petty mindset.
I’d say it changes when you know that changing it will be seen as just another step in the usual hierarchy of relationship validation (ie: introducing her to your friends, telling your parents about her etc). If there’s any question in the fb account holders mind about the outcome then its not a good idea to change it. Having a talk about it seems like a bit much and maybe your friend was late on showing her that he recognizes her state of mind when it comes to him.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I’ve seen people announce their divorces via Facebook. That is just rediculous.
I’m keeping my relationship status off, even if I get married. (Kevin, even when you and I are married this week in Vegas, I’m not telling anyone)
September 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I also have a facebook relationship status story.
Me and my now ex girlfriend were in school (well still are) and we starting dating during the summer. When it was time for school again we had been going out for 3 months. She went to school in Halifax and me here at UofT. I drove her to Halifax since it was the last time to spend time together for a month.
When i came home i did the 16 hour drive all at once and drove through the night and right to my new res. When i got there i went on facebook , up till now we hadn’t been in a facebook relationship, i blame this next part on sleep deprivation because looking back yes it was kind of stupid. I changed my status to ‘open relationship’ figuring she would either get a small chuckle out of it or just call me and idiot and id change it and that would be that. Not so much… she called me that night crying asking what was going and if i was serious and so on. I was pretty shocked, it was obvious that we were exclusive and i would of bet a million dollars that she would of known it was a joke.
After much apologizing and reassurance everything was fine. But I’ll always remember the time that th facebook relationship field caused the first real strain in a relationship.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Ha ha ha! I didn’t even know you could have an “open-relationship” on Facebook!! That’s awesome!
Lesson: no woman wants to be in an open relationship
September 17th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I’ve seen some nasty Facebook fallouts between mutual/shared friends of mine whose relationship ended with a bang. The battles, pain, and crying leaked to the profiles via “relationship status updates”, “news feeds” (BIG one), blog posts and the like. Totally absurd.
September 20th, 2008 at 11:44 am
i agree,it will be seen as just another step in the usual hierarchy of relationship validation (ie: introducing her to your friends, telling your parents about her etc). If there’s any question in the fb account holders mind about the outcome then its not a good idea to change it. tiffany jewelleryHaving a talk about it seems like a bit much and maybe your friend was late on showing her that he recognizes her state of mind when it comes to him.
September 25th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Goodness, this was one funny story. Sorry Darcie. Guys like that are just plain stupid. Mark was right, that’s one bullet dodged. You deserve better.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Yeah, “Jim” sounds like an arse, you do deserve better. =]
I just got out of a relationship where my boyfriend didn’t have facebook, or myspace. It was the best thing ever, no strain at all. I didn’t have to remember to change my status, or write something about him, or any of that other shit people do. It was fabby.
And also, story: my friend broke up with this guy about a month ago, and it was a pretty messy breakup, she was shattered. But last week, she got an email from some newsletter thing she’d signed up to a while ago, and she’d been so in love with him that she’d registered as “~ loves ~”. And she got the email, and it said, “Hey, ~ loves ~ ….” and it just brought back all that crappyness.
October 5th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Maybe I should write in my eHarmony profile that I only want someone who doesn’t have a working internet connection ;-)
Your poor friend! Hopefully she doesn’t get that newsletter often!
June 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am
It’s amazing how different people view this. I, for one, have completely different opinions about this to most of you. As I see it, “Social Networking” is kinda here to stay. And if it is used as a communication medium between friends that it works as a sub-society of it’s own…albeit using the written medium rather than the verbal one. So for those of you averse to putting your “status” up on Facebook I would say this: would you tell your “real world” friends that you were in a relationship? Would you tell them if you came out of a relationship? Then why would you want to avoid it on Facebook? The fact is that if you are going to use Facebook at all then you are submitting your life to scrutiny. If you post ANY updates at all then of COURSE people will read and respond to them.
To Soph above…I wonder…why on earth would you have a problem writing something about your boyfriend? Do you write other “updates”? Tell your friends that you had a great birthday? Or just got a new job? Then why this reluctance to write anything about your boyfriend? This is what I don’t get…and I speak from personal experience here. My girlfriend does regular Facebook updates…saying she had a great weekend with friends, saying she had a great night out, saying that she is just enjoying the sunshine…whatever…but when it comes to our relationship she rarely puts anything up there. Even if we had a fantastic weekend together. And to me it is infuriating!! You see, it isn’t about whether or not you post something about your boy/girlfriend…or your “status”…but it is about what you DO post instead of that. If you willingly talk/post about all manner of bullshit but exclude them then what kind of a message do you think that that sends out???
And as for the “It’s complicated”…personally…I think that is atrocious. The day after my girlfriend changed her status to “It’s complicated” there were “old friends” of hers (guys of course) getting in touch saying how great it would be to see her again! To me, if you change your status to “It’s complicated” that basically means…”I am not available…at the moment” If you are having problems but you still view yourself as being together then you are “In a Relationship”…if you are “on a break” (to quote Friends) then change it to “Single”. “It’s Complicated” is just damn ridiculous!
I personally think that Facebook itself should be outlawed (like all the other social networking sites) because it leads to problems. People spend more and more time on Facebook chatting to friends when there are other people out there in the world that want to spend time with them. Social dynamics exist for a reason. You grow up in life and then you make friends and some of those will be close friends. Then you find someone that is special to you and you form a relationship with them. They become one of the most important people to you. For a reason. Then Facebook comes along and messes up all of those dynamics because it diverts peoples attention from the people that they SHOULD be spending time with to the people that they probably lost touch with for a reason. But there is the “novelty” of it. I know of many relationships that have been destroyed by Facebook/MySpace. But of course, if you question the person that is spending the time on there then you become “opressive” and “controlling”. And all because you see the person that you love slipping away into another world…
Yes this is personal for me…yes I am pi*sed about it…and yes I resent Facebook because it forces you to ask questions. When you find out more about your girlfriends mood and life from Facebook than you do in person…then there is a problem. Facebook made me aware of that problem and, if I am being honest, I would rather have died in ignorance…
Rant over…
June 9th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Wow, that as long. But thank you! I will actually do a follow up post to address your points. Look for it sometime this week.
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I think that some people put too much emphasis on facebook relationship statuses. People should find something more productive to do with their time than to broadcast all over the internet that they’re officially “off the market.” To me, that screams, desperation for attention, loneliness, and being pathetic. Those kinds of peole should find ways to increase their brain power instead of spending wasted time on the internet reminding the whole virtual world that they’re “in a relationship.”
July 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Funny…to me it screams “I am happy in my relationship and proud of it and want the world to know about it”…
Different people see the same thing in different ways though I guess…
July 7th, 2009 at 10:07 am
You guys are both right…I think it all depends on your comfort level with each other and where you are in the relationship.