Dear single, complicated-relationship-having people,
I’m curious to know why your Facebook relationship status changes so frequently. I realize love can be a roller coaster causing you to upchuck at every turn of emotions. But, if your status with another person changes as much as T-Pain’s medallions, it’s not really much of a relationship at all.
Tuesday, you were single. By Thursday, you were back in a relationship. On Saturday, you got engaged. And by Monday, it’s complicated. What a week you’ve had!
Your relationship over the past two days.
The fact that you would tag your relationship as “complicated” speaks volumes to your knowledge about relationships. In case no one told you, all relationships will be complicated at some point. Every tiff between you and baby doesn’t warrant a change in your status to be blasted to 853 of your closest friends.
The same goes for your profile status updates. Facebook is not a laundromat.
At least 16 of your 853 friends probably know enough about the situation to decode your indiscreet remarks. If you are having an unusually tough day in your relationship, take a moment and Mirandize yourself. You can limit gossip inbox messaging between your FB buddies about your crazy updates if you exercise your right to remain silent.
Should you choose to give up that right and proceed to separate your whites and delicates in your profile, don’t be upset when someone asks what kind of detergent you’re using. Don’t become annoyed when your Facebook friends give you their perspective on liquid softener versus dryer sheets. And no, you may not request that people mind their own business and leave you alone. After all, you are the one that washed and hung your dirty sheets online.
It’s simple: If you don’t want people in your business, don’t post it on Facebook.
Well, I guess it's not that complicated after all. I need to remember to change my status back to "in a relationship."
I must tell you that seeing your ever-changing relationship status in my homepage highlights is not at all what I would consider a highlight. Aren’t you tired of changing your status? Trust, we (your FB friends) are definitely tired of receiving the updates.
If you want to try and save your relationship (and your FB friends list), here are a few things you can try to get off the status-go-round:
1. Start by living your life off the wall, literally. If you and boo have a fight, shut down the computer and say goodnight.
2. Stop changing your status to reflect the daily trials of your relationship. If you aren’t sure when it’s appropriate to change your status, remove the field from your profile all together. Your real friends that you actually have contact with know your status; the other 837 don’t care.
3. Spend more time with your partner and less updating your status. The happenings between you and your insignificant other wouldn’t be so complicated if you spent more time in the relationship instead of on Facebook.
4. Consider actually talking to your mate about your issues. Ignore the urge to use your lifeline and poll the audience your friends via your status. Your love will forever be stuck in the rinse cycle if you don’t stop soliciting advice from people that don’t even know you.
If you are drawing a blank on implementation of the aforementioned, think back to how you managed relationships before Facebook Freddie, text messaging and all the other tools that are ruining communication.
Sidebar: If you were born in the early ’90s, you probably have no recollection of non-electronic communication. Carry on as normal.
I look forward to no longer seeing your relationship status change. I hope you can save the remaining remnants of your relationship. And remember, when in doubt, just log out.
,
Monica
P.S. It is your choice to ignore or heed the advice above. Just know that I won’t be subjected to your whirlwind relationship camping out in my homepage’s highlights. I’ll simply delete you… Share this via Facebook.
P.P.S.
THANK YOU! I was just reading through my numerous friends’ facebook statues and the exact thought came to mind. Why are so many people putting their personal business out on facebook? The worst are 35 year old people who in the same breath claim to be grown professionals.
My brother-in-law changes his relationship status with his on and off again girlfriend practically every week and then has the nerve to get mad when I make sarcastic remarks.
If someone puts up a status then I’m going to comment on it if I want to. If you didn’t want my opinion then you shouldn’t have put up the status or you should unfriend me, either one is fine with me.
One other Facebook Friends, not everybody needs to see pics of you and your boo dry humping on the hood of his
borrowednew ride. Keep some of the magic between yourselves… we’re begging you!I’m still trying to figure out why people feel it’s such a great idea to say that they’re in a “complicated” relationship. Like Moni said, aren’t they all complicated on some level?
That’s the weirdest one to me… it’s about as useless as the “poke” function.
But I also don’t get the people who put single or in a relationship up period. I feel like the people who need to know will know, and you’ll spare yourself some unnecessary gossip if you never address those points in your profile.
If you get engaged or married, I’m all for it… BUT ONLY AFTER you’ve told everyone in your inner circle. Finding out your best friend is engaged via Facebook is… effed up.
I guess I’m the odd ball on this one. Or, maybe I’ve just never paid that much attention to it, but I never really have that many friends changing their relationship statuses. Occasionally I’ll see the engaged or married ones pop up which I already know about, but other than that most of my friends don’t even list their relationship status. It could ALSO be due to the fact that I only have right under 200 friends..*shrugs shoulders*… Very funny post though, I like the Miranda rights and washing machine comparison…live your life ‘off the wall’ literally…that was hilarious…
@jlbd: Let me take this opportunity to tell you that you need more friends… Your Facebook experience isn’t enhanced until you have 34 invites to events you wouldn’t attend even if they paid you, you’ve been poked by 25 guys you don’t know and you have at least one friend who updates his or her relationship status more than once in a week…
@Damon
I love the sarcasm…I’ll pass on that experience!
I am with you there… I realize that my FB life is somewhat tame! Lol! People can go weeks without updating anything… but then again, I have only around 150 friends and those are people I am actually interested in knowing about…
Damon I agree. My own dean, Ali, didn’t tell me he got engaged, he told me “I thought you would see it on FB” had the right mind to give him some thunder on that one. Anyway, I had to tell my woman to chill on having her statuses (or is it statii) be about the daily dynamic of our relationship. We don’t go thru the daily updating of relationship status though. Mine has said w/ her since 2004 (beginning of FB @ Mizzou!). Anyway most chicks in a relationship should log-off FB because a)Their constant rants on why N.A.S can be quite annoying b)the next guy won’t want to be w/ her because he knows that she’ll put every ounce of they business on the street and that she is drama personified and c) w/ the increase forum for man-hating, I can only assume that it will lead to a skyrocketing lesbian population after awhile.
I wish I had more hands to give this post 4 thumbs up
sorry I just re-read my post and it was some of the worst sentence structure/grammar I have ever seen. Matt Oates regrets the error.
lol, I truly had a hard time reading it, but it’s ok!
Its Monday and I just came back from a camping trip last night. Sleeping on rocks all weekend has apparently messed w/ my brain too.
I’m just shocked the apology was big enough to bring out your first name. I know there are people out there who don’t even know your first name. They think your last name is your first name… lol.
Anyway, your rant made sense to me. Finding out someone you’re close to is engaged via Facebook is … well, upsetting.
I could HUG YOU FOR THIS POST.
Handclaps, drop mike, stops feet, “SEXUAL CHOCOLATE
Exits left.
@nicki: This one is worth the mic drop, ain’t it?
Heck yeah.. she didn’t need to say nuffin else. It was brilliant. lol
Great post…
I limit the amount of relationship changes I have to see…
I mostly see stories about *ahem* a certain young lady’s hair journey, which I actually like reading about.
I dunno–I just think you should remove the whole relationship thing from the profile period..it doesn’t really matter…it’s not like people respect it or use it as a be all and end all.
I start ignoring people who do this with their status. It’s CLEARLY an attention getting gimmick and no matter how MUCH they complain about EVERYONE sending them emails how tired they are of people being nosey, if it WERE true, they wouldn’t change their status every time their siggy other said “you’re getting on my nerves”. Yes, at the end of the day, it’s their damn Facebook page to do with as they please but I want them to realize as long as they are an active participant of “airing their laundry”, they will be the butt of many jokes.
I agree. That’s why I hit the “Like” button on people with constant negative relationship status updates. I mean, if they put it out there, they must be ok with it being used for my amusement. lol
My friend’s 16-year-old sister shocked us all a few months ago by posting that she is “engaged”!!! (Sorry, D.Scott, but this warranted triple exclamation points.) Her cousin and I both gave her virtual slaps upside her head (her cousin probably gave her a real one because she’s in St. Louis, whereas I’m 500 miles away). Anywho, I’ve found that it’s mostly really young Facebookers that see the need to constantly change their statuses to something completely ridiculous.
BTW, she’s not really engaged, she’s just being a stupid teenager.
Yeah teenagers do this alot. My fiance’s little cousin is 16 and his religious affiliation is listed as ‘Buddhist’….clearly he’s not…lol
And, his other little cousin is like 15 and she listed that she was in a relationship with her best friend…a female…lol, and no she’s not gay. I think teenagers just like being silly on FB.
@aye: Unfortunately, I know adults who do it. And by adults, I mean idiotic people over 21 who should know better. lol.
asyoureditor, sorry to break it to you but I only have one high school person in my friends on Facebook and she doesn’t even change her status like this…it’s all the grown folks and I have over 300 friends…it’s just sad LOL
I have deleted 2 GROWN FOLKS who did this all the time, not solely because of this but they were definitely guilty and from what I hear, they still change their statuses as much as their weaves and under clothes LOL
co-sign… I haven’t deleted anyone for doing this, but I’m certainly not opposed to doing so… I can’t understand why anyone would want that type of avoidable embarrassment via Facebook.
Was that screenshot of an actual couple or multiple couples? Cause that ish is crazy! Who has time to log into Facebook and update all that crap? That’s just plain sad.
This isn’t really related to relationship status but I learned through facebook that one of my friends is now a Wiccan. Not that I have a problem with that but it was very shocking since this is a guy that hung out with all of the “hood” people at school.
Best Part:
It’s simple: If you don’t want people in your business, don’t post it on Facebook.
It’s a social networking site…not a place to air your dirty laundry and then complain about everybody all up in yours…stop hanging your business on the clothes-line outside of your window for everyone to see.
That video is HILARIOUS!! I’m glad they had too much time on their hands that day…
Question:
Am I the only one who hates when girls put married to another girl and craziness like that?
I had a friend who did it and was mad when people thought she was a lesbian and then…shock of shocks she announced she was a lesbian…
*smdh*
I really don’t get it.
“It’s simple: If you don’t want people in your business, don’t post it on Facebook.”
Amen.
I don’t even have my relationship stat on my profile because if you know me / are privileged to know that aspect of my life, then you know what’s up.
Too many times have I seen people get worked up over the changing of relationship statuses (and statuses in general; oh LORD the constant status changes make me want to choke people). A year ago, my friend’s baby sister changed her relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘it’s complicated’ and within 2 hours of it, one of our mutual friends called her and inquired who she was complicated with. I kid you not. It wasn’t that serious. IT’S NEVER THAT SERIOUS.
Earlier this summer, I thought nothing of when my cousin changed his relationship status from “in a relationship” to “married” because he was in a committed relationship for like 2 years. Come to find out he up & got married the whole family (that wasn’t immediate) found out via Facebook (and later, confirmation through frantic phone calls from my aunts & uncles). He got married at the courthouse. Grimy.
Loved the post.
I never did understand the purpose of the “complicated relationship.”
I myself keep my relationship status off of Facebook. I’ve had the guys that write me messages regardless if I put that I am in a relationship or not. In the words of some, unless “there is a ring on it” what does he have to do with me? Smh.
But FAR too many people but their business [relationship and otherwise] online. So I agree… live off the wall, turn off the computer and say goodnight. I had a friend that said people should leave their relationships off Facebook then called her man and his girl on the side out in a status… government names and all. Hypocritical much? Again… smh.
church. preach it, please, preach it!
@jane: Shall I start passing around the collection plate? It’s time to tithe, good people.
Love this! My relationship status wont ever changed from MARRIED! Trust that! But when I see people change every other week…I think about deleting them.
To this hole thing, I say ***Jesus is Light Baptist Episcopal Church of God in Holy Name Cathedral*** (aka PREACH)
I needed this break. I LOLed out loud.
Can we also add… don’t dogwalk the people you have invited to your wedding via your facebook status???
Indy500 low blow of the day….getting back to work now.