In this day and age, every major event in your life must be appropriately and immediately documented via Facebook. This social networking site must be the first to be notified of every significant event and decision. This is true for your love life as well.
Everyone always wants to know your relationship status at any given point. And your relationship, whether it's been five weeks or five years, is not validated unless it's "Facebook Official".
Whenever you're in relationship purgatory and there are no particular "titles" explaining and describing your relationhip to other people it can be difficult. Telling a story about your significant other you want to say "My boyfriend said such and such" but technically he's not your boyfriend. Someone asks you if you're in a relationship and you take a long pause. You want to say yes, but the true answer is no, but you're so confused about the blurred lines that you end up saying "uh, yeah kinda". And then you stare off into space wondering how the person you're speaking of would answer the question if/when someone asks them...?
The ups and downs of relationships are only compounded by the publicity of constant notications of "single", "in a relationship", and the ever-dreaded "it's complicated" status. Many are now opting to remove the relationship status alltogether to alleviate the woes of putting your business out there. Choosing not to list whether or not you are in a relationship or who you're in a relationship with can rid you of the constant questioning of your relationship status from your facebook friends, but it can also lead to another problem.
When you are in a relationship the first question you get is, "Is it Facebook Official?". And the answer to that question determines the legitimacy of your relationship in the eyes of the facebook world. But if you really care about someone, and they care about you, that's all that should matter. Labels and titles are beautiful and important to define the parameters of your relationship, but in the grand scheme of things, they only matter in terms of marriage.
So I vote for a new "courting" option of relationship status! What do you think? Is your relationship legit even if it's not Facebook Official?
I think that Facebook is overrated. Being "Facebook Official" doesn't even come to mind for me UNTIL someone brings it up. Even then, I just laugh, and being a Communications major, I analyze the situation from a Media Criticism point of view. And laugh some more......
ReplyDeleteI did conform, however. weeks after it was "real life official", i was facebook official. Spontaneous decision haha.
Even so, i think it's about the person. Facebook official or not, it's legit if I say it is :)
Hahaha! I completely agree that being a Comm major makes you look at life differently, but I love that you eventually conformed. I think as much as we "media folks" like to fight the virtual peer pressure, we still want to conform! But like you said, real life official and fb official, either way it doesn't matter as long as you're happy with the person and yourself.:)
ReplyDeleteAh, the dread Facebook official dilemma. Facebook official matters to me in terms of my relationship.However, I will joke about other people and say it's not real until it's FB official. I don't truly mean that though if a relationship is serious to the two people in it then FB doesn't matter. Sometimes I do use it to gauge problems in a relationship. For instance, if one person in a relationship has single and the other has in a relationship that raises my eyebrows. Yet, like I previously said if their serious about them what FB thinks doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteWhy is being Fb official important to you in your relationship and how do y'all handle that?
ReplyDeleteI would agree that if someone absolutely refuses to be fb official it could be a red flag that they don't want other people to know they're with you, but if it's just a mutual decision not to share that I don't see anything wrong with that.