Facebook defines our romantic relationships

It’s complicated.

Defining relationships has never been easy, and the simplicity of Facebook relationship statuses just complicates the issue further.

Photo illustration by Sean Sherman
Whether you are in an open relationship, in a relationship, divorced, married, single or “it’s complicated,” the issue is not only figuring out which status fits you best, but whether or not you’re prepared to confirm it on Facebook.

Once you change your status on Facebook, your coworkers, classmates, cousins, parents, aunts, uncles, teachers, friends and neighbors will know, or at least think they know what you are up to.

Some people take Facebook relationship statuses seriously, some take it so seriously that they will hide it, and some just take advantage of people’s curiosity and have fun with their statuses.

SCC student Jonah McIntosh thinks this is all too complicated.

“While I was dating my first girlfriend my status was single” McIntosh said. “I changed my Facebook status to ‘it's complicated after I broke up with her.’ She had sent me a request to be in a relationship before we broke up, I didn’t accept it, because changing your relationship status early in the relationship can have weird effects.”

McIntosh expressed his discomfort with publicizing a relationship while in the process of figuring out wether it’s going to work or not. “All you friends are like ‘oh my god’, and then you change it a few months later and it can be kinda awkward,” McIntosh said.

So after McIntosh and his ex-girlfriend broke up, he decided to remove the relationship status, not even say he was single, because “it’s too complicated to say ‘it’s too complicated,’” he said.

Other’s don’t bother dealing with it. SCC student Ashton Skelton said “I’m not even sure I know how to change it (the relationship status)... I feel like it’s kind of a pointless thing to do anyway.”

Skelton says she wouldn’t care if the guy she was dating didn’t change his status, because her true friends will already know you are in a relationship, because you would have talked to them about it.

And like McIntosh, Skelton believes that posting your status complicates break-ups.

“Putting it up only makes it harder for you if you break up later, because it basically announces your break-up to the world,” Skelton said. “And break-ups are hard enough without everyone feeling sorry for you.”

Other people think that posting relationship statuses is just something that should happen, because Facebook is a way of showing your life to other people.

SCC student Austin Evans says that if his girlfriend didn’t post her status he would be upset “because more people will try to kid on her... and it would be as if she is hiding our relationship.”

SCC student Armando Alvarado says that some people don’t like publicizing their relationship statuses so that they can keep the doors open. “They are still trying to go out with other people,” Alvarado said.

“Or they are just not ready to show their friends what their boyfriend or girlfriend look like,” Alvarado added. “But others do like to show who they are dating to tell others that they are taken and are not trying to find others on Facebook to have one night stands.”


Photo illustration by Sean Sherman
Published in the Ebbtide, Feb 12, 2010