About six months ago my long-term boyfriend and I decided to call it a day and split up. It was an amazingly amicable split and we managed to maintain a good friendship, much to the surprise of many people. It was not unusual for us (or our close friends) because we did not let it get to the point where we hated each other. Now, several months I still occasionally see my ex (I hate that term but do not wish to use his real name) and we still have a large amount of mutual friends so I did not wish any new relationship to become an issue.
As testament to our respect to each other we both decided to reveal our new relationships at exactly the same time through a series of emails. However, within hours of him telling me he updated his Facebook status!
This was a source of great amusement to my friends who noticed the update and commented to me. It is a weird habit that people involved in social networking have developed, why do all your 100s of online acquaintances (let’s face it, they’re not all friends) need to know this information? Surely it just places heightened pressure on you to make it work? Also, it’s a bit like announcing an engagement so should we send cards of congratulations?
To me, Facebook relationship status (or any social networking site that shows updates) is a virtual pencil case. At school you would scribble on your pencil case "I heart..." (insert name here) and it would regularly be scribbled out and replaced. It has the same effect of telling everybody that you know how much you fancy/like someone but is slightly enhanced, it’s easier to alter and you can link to your beau so others can even see what they look like! I am prepared for the backlash that this post will incur and am genuinely interested in people’s reasons for doing it. Why do you need to tell everybody else about how much you like someone?
It could also be construed as a territorial thing, like a t-shirt reading “I’m with him/her” and an arrow. It’s warning all other people that they did not sign up for ‘dating’, maybe even a reflection of insecurity? Still, I will not be updating my Facebook status.
