I’m Torn: Facebook Official

October 12, 2009 1:00 pm     Posted in Relationships  Brianna-Fordham University g+ page

facebook official copy

This is real. We're Facebook-Official.

Okay, so as if the world of flirting/dating/hooking up in dark corners wasn’t already confusing enough, we now have Facebook thrown in the mix. You can poke the cutie from Calculus, send some racy “private messages,” and maybe even send a condom or two his way.


By Brianna

But when you actually really like the guy, and have even gone on a couple dates (aka met for lunch in the caf or taken a stroll through the plaza) the whole Facebook situation gets ten times more complicated.

And that brings us to the “relationship status.”  It sits in the corner of our profiles taunting us. “You’re still single??” it screams (accompanied by Facebook ads luring you to Match.com). But when you are seeing someone it’s even worse, nagging you day after day. “Are you official yet?! It’s been a month! Come on already!”

I don’t know how I feel about this little option. I won’t deny that it’s exciting to finally make the official switch to “in a relationship,” but the extra pressure it adds to my love life is a major negative.

Obviously, I’m torn.

Love It:

The fact that making a relationship Facebook official clears up a significant amount of issues surrounding a new relationship. First of all, there is none of that sitting up late at night with your roommate, dissecting his text messages and the way he hugged you goodbye. Does he want a commitment? Is he not sure? Of course he’s sure! He just changed his relationship status!  It sort of brings us back to those Pleasantville days when a guy simply pinned his girl and that was that; when you have been “Facebook officialed” you’re a couple. Done.

Ah, dating has become so black and white.

And when it finally does happen you can inform all of your 1,345 friends instantly. No need to pick up the phone and tell everyone you’ve finally met a great guy when his entire life history, complete with photos, is only a friend request away.

And I have to admit, it is freakin’ exciting. Being able to finally tell that little relationship box, and the rest of the online community, that you are officially “in a relationship”! You will be bombarded with little red number notifications, since everyone “likes” this new change. And it will feel great.

Loathe It:

How official is official anyway?! Is it enough that we text during class and make out every Friday night? And what if you think it’s official, but you have yet to receive the relationship confirmation request. What can you really say to clear up the confusion? “Uh…hey, I was wondering, can we be Facebook official yet?” If this isn’t pitiful, I don’t know what is.

Then there’s the rejection; what if you just want to have fun, and the guy totally jumps the gun and makes it official? (Or vice-versa – we can’t deny that we tend to fall a tad too quickly).  You don’t want to hurt his feelings (because you totally want to have him available for a booty call at all times of the night) but if you accept, everyone else will think you are a couple, which would severely hinder your chances of meeting other cute guys on campus.

Finally: the break up. As if they aren’t awkward already. Now you have to have 1,345 people feeling sorry for you and sending their condolences. Not to mention all your girlfriends “liking” it and leaving comments like “you deserve better anyway,” and “were going to get WASTED tonight!!” Some of these breakups are actually really painful for both parties, and making it unofficial on Facebook totally trivializes it. Not to mention that both of you have to deal with reading the others friends’ plans to take your ex-significant-other out to get wasted and hook up.

And when is it appropriate to make it un-official anyway? Is the next morning too insensitive? Does waiting a week make you seem desperate and clingy? It seems like there isn’t a right answer. Breakups take time, and Facebook doesn’t have “in the process of moving on” as a relationship option.

What does everyone else think? Do you love being able to solidify your relationship via Facebook or does it make the dating even more stressful (if that’s even possible)?

24 Comments on "I’m Torn: Facebook Official"

  1. Lauren - University says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20099:17 am 

    I don't understand the obsession with FB-official. It's such a non-issue in a real relationship and it totally just opens you up for awkwardness if and when the breakup happens. Don't do it. Just don't.

  2. Casey says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20099:45 am 

    I agree with Lauren. If you're actually out getting to know the guy, by asking him questions and learning about each other together instead of stalking each other through Facebook, then the relationship status thingy shouldn't even be on your mind. My boyfriend and I were real-life official for a couple months before I even changed my status to "in a relationship" and then it was another couple months before I made him a facebook (so I could send him cutsey relationship bumper stickers) and changed our statuses to "in a relationship with so-and-so". All of our friends already knew for about 5 months so it wasn't a big deal.

    If your life doesn't revolve around a social networking site (which it shouldn't) then this is, like Lauren said, a very non-issue.

  3. R says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20099:45 am 

    I've been dating my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years and my FB still says single. Mainly because he used to break up with me at least a couple times a month and i would rather it say "single" when I'm in a relationship than "in a relationship" when i totally hate him. Plus I hate having to keep changing it.. i know it annoys everyone else. So his punishment is that my FB says single lol

  4. Kate says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 200911:02 am 

    I'm 50/50 on this, a part of me would want to hurry and change my status to tell all of facebook world that i found a man, the other part of me would want to keep it a secret, and be all mysterious and have everyone wonder

  5. shari says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 200911:46 am 

    i HATE facebook official and how obsessed people are with it!!!

  6. jd says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 200912:04 pm 

    this article was really stupid.

  7. Jenna says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 200912:33 pm 

    I don't list my relationship status on my facebook profile. I try to avoid friending people who wouldn't know enough about me to know I'm in a relationship anyway, plus I find the whole thing of broadcasting it to the world a little juvenile.

    And I have always insisted on having the "official" talk with guys before I consider them to be a boyfriend anyway. I think straightforwardness and being on the same page is important in a relationship (in some aspects, at least; my boyfriend and I are on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy when it comes to the way my hair sticks straight up in the morning).

  8. alisha says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20091:10 pm 

    When my boyfriend and I had the relationship talk, I changed mine to in a relationship a few days after, once my friends and family already knew. My guy has never listed anything for a relationship status, and still doesnt, so our profiles arent linked in that way. For me, I just didn't feel right leaving it as "single", but at the same time I wanted something in the little box…you know…for when that guy who burned me last year then msged me on the first day of class decides to creep my page…..

  9. Teri says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20092:46 pm 

    facebook official sucks. It is dumb to broadcast your relationship status to the whole world like you are hot shit. Same goes for putting up pictures of you and your boyfriend. Don't put up pictures of you and your boyfriend and don't put your relationship status on facebook. I am glad everyone has the same opinion.

  10. TG says:
    Mon, 12th Oct 20095:16 pm 

    I have to agree with everyone else. I think it's best just to take off the relationship category of your Facebook all together. I like to think (or at least hope) that most people don't really care if you are in a relationship. Well unless they are into you. And in that case they can find out the old fashioned way by asking around.

  11. La says:
    Tue, 13th Oct 20099:25 am 

    I used to do the whole 'in a relationship with x" thing, but it has gotten old. I literally just took off my relationship status completely from Facebook. If a guy wants to know my status, he can get to know me and ask. I'd rather not have guys creeping my page. But to the pictures thing, if I'm official with my boyfriend, and I spend a lot of time with him, it's inevitable that there will be pictures of us on Facebook. That would just be weird if I didn't acknowledge my relationship at ALL, kinda like I'm hiding it…

  12. Alice says:
    Tue, 13th Oct 20099:54 pm 

    I usually don't have any sort of relationship status because well I've never been in one before and it seemed useless to put "single" because THAT seemed like advertisement to me.

    We did not put the relationship status with one another until our 6 months, so it was undeniably official by then and most of our friends already knew. It's a way of informing other friends who might not know due to distance and a way to keeping people from potentially hitting on you. As I see it. So you don't have conversation with a friend trying to subtly extract information from you on whether or not you had a boyfriend. I had some incidences where I had to insert that fact one way or another to have the person ease off on me.

    It's sorta like a ring on your hand, I don't consider it that obvious, but it's subtle signal to people you're taken…or not. Then again, we're not the coupley type on FB. That is too much information and PDA. We save that for ourselves.

    But you know, if you think status changes are awkward…how about all 23423952523 pictures of you two as a sickening couple? How do you deal with that? Delete? Ignore? That's awkward, and that's why I don't do stuff like that. Relationship status is just enough.

  13. Liz says:
    Sat, 17th Oct 20091:38 pm 

    I agree with everyone who said it- i just dont have a relationship status on there. it makes things so much easier because people don't have to know if you're together or not.

  14. Gregory says:
    Sat, 17th Oct 20096:57 pm 

    I went out with this girl for several months before we actually put that we were in a facebook relationship cause i really didn't care. If we were seeing each other and together it didn't matter to me. Then we mutually broke up after about a year and a half and decided to just date and see other people so she takes our relationship status down that night but we still saw each other for 2 weeks and i thought things were going to get better and we'd be back together sometime soon, then she says shes done and wants to be single. 2 days later shes in a facebook relationship with some other dude, flaunting it in my face and even changing her picture one with this new guy. I don't understand how someone can do that so quickly and flaunt it like that. it's just rude. the whole facebook relationship thing is a joke.

  15. Abroughman says:
    Tue, 20th Oct 20096:24 pm 

    I've had a few boyfriends before and never made them facebook official. WIth my boyfriend now i just took off my relationship status completely that makes it less awkward. What are you supposed to sit and talk about it…"hey i think we should be facebook official" I have some friends who even change their boys relationship status for them..and if that's not a psycho alarm i dont know what is. The whole thing is so 5th grade. who cares what your relationship status is you should be aware and your REAL friends know if you're dating someone or not anyways. grow up.

  16. Lacey says:
    Wed, 21st Oct 200911:59 am 

    Personally, I like it. Then you know. And you know for sure. When he's cool with telling his friends, other girl friends, and whoever else is on there, you can confidently say "boyfriend" rather than "guy I'm dating."

  17. K says:
    Thu, 22nd Oct 20098:14 pm 

    I've never been in a real facebook relationship, in fact I was married to a friend of mine for a year just because it was funny. Strangely enough though, I found out recently a good friend of mine was in a relationship via facebook, and I found it insulting he didn't tell me and I had to find out through the internet? It set me off the edge and I canceled facebook all together for a period.

  18. anonymous says:
    Wed, 2nd Dec 200911:33 am 

    I had this long distance friends with benefits thing going on with this guy for about 2 years and then we decided to make it official. My relationship status was (and still is) a fake marriage with a girlfriend. His, however, said "single". And idk, there's a difference between not having one at all and having it say "single" outright. Then he cheated on me a week afterward with some girl and left me for her, and now, three weeks later, his status says "in a relationship". it's not linked to her though. but yeah, seeing people "like" it and all the "congrats!" comments hurt a lot considering it's just facebook.

  19. Tai says:
    Wed, 28th Jul 20101:30 am 

    Oh, dear. I'm so confused. My boyfriend and I literally JUST started dating and I was wondering about this whole facebook thing. There is no WAY I'm sending him a relationship request. I don't care if my page says single…but I don't want to say no if he asks, because then I'll know for sure that he really does like me. (To be honest I don't know how I landed him.) I hate high school, it makes everything so complicated!

    I'm excited for everyone to know that we're "in a relationship"…even though most of my friends guessed that we would end up going together anyways. It's just a thing you know?

    On the other hand, when we do break up (and I know we will, nothing lasts) I don't want everyone's feedback on it, I don't care what they think. THAT part I would want to keep on the low. If everyone saw it and didn't make it a huge deal, then it wouldn't be so bad.

    See what I mean? The good parts can be broadcast, everyone likes that. But we'd rather keep the crappy stuff behind curtains. =/

  20. Emily Grace says:
    Fri, 30th Dec 201111:52 am 

    I'm kind of split- yeah, I think it's dumb, but it's kind of how the world works now. In my last relationship, I was "in a relationship" on Facebook, but we had technically been exclusive for a loooong while before that. Right now, I have single on there because I WANT guys to know that it's okay to approach me! If you are somewhere in between, you can just remove it all together to avoid the awkwardness.

    And don't forget, whenever you change your status, you can delete in from your news feed. That way, it's on your profile, but no one can comment on it, and it's not like you are broadcasting it to the world!

  21. Kimcyrelle says:
    Mon, 12th Mar 201210:45 am 

    I am facebook ofaicifl with my boyfriend but that didn\’t happen until a couple months after we started dating. We don\’t really talk on facebook though, mostly only through skype and texting where it\’s not visible to all of our friends.\’

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