On bad Facebook behavior
By this point, we’ve all blown our New Year’s resolutions and have reverted to the fat, nicotine-addicted, underachieving losers we were in 2008. Old habits die hard, folks. But I’m holding out hope that we can all band together and resolve to sway the tide of one thing: Facebook-relationship behavior. It’s not too late!
In the past month, I’ve learned of the following via Facebook updates: several engagements, one pregnancy, a divorce, several insignificant unions between insecure parties, and a bunch of other crap that clogs my inbox on a daily basis. But by far the most shocking was when my girlfriend sent me an instant message to notify me that one of my best friends was engaged. What?! I almost cried — not tears of joy, but true disappointment. Nearly 10 years of late-night sob sessions, informal relationship counseling, and tough love, and I find out about this monumental life change not from a phone call, but on a social-networking site?
Even grosser was a story my friend told me about her cousin announcing his divorce via Facebook before actually informing his, um, wife. Welcome to the digital age, people, where text messages will suffice for a breakup and IMs decimate relationships.
There was a time when people resorted to the ultimate tool of cowardice to end their relationships: the Dear John letter. We’ve now taken that vile tactic and exploited it to epic proportions — and in the public sphere rather than the private one. It not only shows that you’re too emotionally deficient to deal with your issues through actual verbal communication, but that you have the spine of a slug (not to mention the balls of a kitten).
I’ve got to be honest, kids: I don’t get it. I think it’s callous to dismiss and/or end your relationships in this way. And for those of you who are self-absorbed enough to think that people actually care about the daily fluctuations of your demented relationships, get over yourselves. (This column is excepted because I actually get paid for it.) For those of you who do care about said fluctuations, get a life.
For whom are you making these pronouncements? Yourself? The paramour whose affection or attention you’re trying to gain? The world, so that it can heap its sympathy or congratulations upon you? Your former high-school classmate who you are now “friends” with, in order to prove that your love life is a success? Or are you simply looking to publicly lay claim to someone by announcing your relationship with him or her to your 4362 friends?
And what is it, exactly, that you’re looking to accomplish? A universal “Fuck you” to your ex? A chance to spare yourself the numerous individual explanations, which are no longer necessary in a world in which we don’t speak to one another in full sentences? LOL.
The little cracked heart icons, the glittering wedding bands — it’s all a bit ridiculous, if you ask me. But then again, I’m somewhat Facebook-retarded, using
it mainly to remove tagged photos that will make me unemployable, or to ignore friend requests from former classmates who I didn’t like the first time around.
If it’s any indication of how much I value Facebook’s relationship status announcements, it just took me 15 minutes to find that tool on my page. And that’s when I discovered the bogus “It’s complicated” option. It’s complicated? Really? Let’s discuss that on a wall-to-wall chat so that maybe you can indirectly communicate your confusion to the person who is confusing you. People, please. “Complicated” is a dollop of wax left on your pussy lip when you get home from the salon. Relationships are only as complicated as you make them when you announce that “It’s complicated!”
To me, it’s completely unacceptable for someone to end and/or alter his relationship status via Facebook without first informing the person he’s in that relationship with. More important, if in the midst of some emotional turmoil or trauma your first concern is to change your Facebook status, you have bigger issues to address. I think the folks at Facebook should create some “revenge tools” for these types of actions. Perhaps digital castration, with an icon of balls being cut with a machete; or maybe a tiny image of a person being stretched on the rack. You can send it out to all of your “friends” and join together in mass vilification of the individual to help stave off your embarrassment. On a related note, if you’re announcing some grand and celebratory change to your relationship status, you might want to notify your best friends befor your digital ones.
Not long ago, my roommate updated her relationship status, unaware that it would spread through Facebook like a California wildfire. Soon her hysterical mother was calling, notifying her that her breakup was “all over the Interweb!” She and her new boyfriend have since vowed never to publicize their relationship status and have actually reverted to good old-fashioned letter-writing to keep their communication fresh, exciting and — GASP! — maybe even private. The only way I’ve seen the Facebook relationship status used effectively is when my friend lied about being in a relationship so people would stop asking about her dating life.
For those of you reading this column who think it must be a response to my having been spurned on Facebook, to the contrary. I’ve never listed my relationship status, nor have I posted a single picture of me with my lady pal (although others felt compelled to do so until they were beaten into submission). Anyone important in my life knows the status of my relationship(s), and you can damn well bet that the person who is in that relationship with me will be the first to know if and when it changes. I’ll be sure to text her the news.
Jeannie Greeley is a freelance writer who would prefer a live poking to a virtual one. She can be reached at jeannieg@comcast.net.
