Can we be Facebook Official?

I’m getting very close to my 30s and yet I’ve realized recently that Facebook can take a normally mature relationship and turn it into something that I last experienced when I was fourteen years old. Remember what that was like when you were an adolescent trying to figure out what it meant to date? Would we make out after the football game? Did this mean a guaranteed date to the dance? Would there be long phone conversations involved? What if he expects me to eat lunch with him and all his friends? While I am certainly glad to be past these awkward questions that surrounded my first trials with romance, it seems that Social Media has, in many ways, taken us back to this pre-adolescent period of uncertainty, complete with unnecessary awkwardness.

The big question – when do you change your Facebook status—seems to loom over many adult relationships today. In our real lives and relationships this hardly matters, yet everyone jokes about being “Facebook official.” We all know that it really doesn’t mean anything for the grand scheme of our relationship but there it is, that question of when, in this world of self-publicizing our every action, we declare to our online social network that we are (drum roll please) dating someone.

To further complicate this relatively silly question is the fact that everyone comes at this from different angles. I have friends who feel that it is incredibly important to post that they are “In a Relationship” because they are proud to share with their online friends who they are dating in their non-online life. Others feel just as strongly that it is nobody’s business but their own. To compound all of this, many members of your social network will gush, gasp, and perhaps fall to the floor when you do change your status. How can this much thought, drama, and anxiety come from Facebook?

To be honest, until recently I hadn’t given it much thought, other than in passing reference when a girlfriend and I jokingly said we wanted to be in an “It’s Complicated” relationship together to confuse our friends and family. But then I found myself having “the Facebook talk” and it made me realize that for better or worse, Social Media is affecting our lives in ways we never expected. It’s adding new complexities to our real life relationships on a daily basis.

So, what do you think? How much of your personal relationships do you share online?

I think the best way to deal with it is to send a someecard, laugh about it, and call it a day! Oh yeah, and remember that Facebook will not actually make an impact on your feelings toward one another. Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.someecards.com/sympathy-cards/sorry-your-decision-to-quietly-change

http://www.someecards.com/valentines-day-cards/im-ready-to-change-my-facebook-relationship