is it facebook official?

I was inspired by a few conversations last night with some lovely people. If you've never said or heard the phrase, "is it facebook official?" then you may or may not know what the rest of this blog entry is going to be about, but feel free to continue to read anyway.



This morning I woke up and decided that I wanted to write a little bit on the super important facebook relationship status. After I had decided this and I checked facebook for the first time today this was, true story, at the top of my newsfeed:


Eleanor* is now in a relationship <3
5 people like this.


Jack Sparrow*
Sheesh, it's about time its Facebook official.

Justine Timberlake*
Am I gonna approve?


Dominique Moceanu*
more importantly, will coach approve??



Ben Afleck*
No relationship is official until its on facebook....now its on :)



Gretchen Weiners*
OH HONESTLY. on facebook. B, you are SO above that. I guess its fine.



*names may or may not have been changed to protect the individuals involved.



Let me share with you the changes in my facebook relationship timeline. Single-> Nothing Listed ->Single -> Nothing Listed -> It's Complicated with Joe Rishell -> Nothing Listed



The first time when I had nothing listed I was dating someone, but we weren't officially a couple, let alone ready to be "facebook official". The second time I chose to list no relationship status I wasn't dating anyone. I decided I didn't want to have it listed anymore, ever. When I did this facebook's news feed stated "Jessica is no longer listed as single <3">



As you can see I did, however, become listed as complicated. While working together this summer, Joe and I decided to form this fake facebook relationship. At first I was kind of hesitent because I didn't want other guys to think I was actually in a relationship. They needed to know I was available, obvi! Then I thought about it for approximately 1 more second and realized that was crazy and if anyone that I would want to date didn't get to know me well enough to know I was single because he judged me by my facebook page then he definitely isn't someone that I'd want to be with anyway. This complicated relationship lasted for about 8 months until Joe went and broke up with me from our fake relationship with out even telling me! So what, he got a real girlfriend and wanted to be listed as in a relationship with her. I could have at least been notified. I'm still a little bitter. jk ;) Then I went back to my status-less relationship status. (which btw took me a while to figure out how to do and made me even more angry at Joe.)


I have some stories from over the years involving facebook relationship status changes that I'd like to share with you. Junior year of college I found out my roommate got back together with her boyfriend via facebook. I was not too happy about this. I lived down the hall. All she had to do was yell as she was accepting the relationship request and tell me they were back together. I called her out on this too, I was kind of joking, kind of serious, but either way I was offended because I found out about their relationship on facebook and not from her.



I've found out about other really good friends relationships becoming "official" from facebook over the years too. Most of them go to other schools/are grown ups now so I've learned to not get offended. I've had discussions with several friends about whether or not they should become "facebook official" with their new bf/gf. Complicated decisions, right?


My favorite: I was facebook creeping on some wedding pics of this kid from my high school. There were pics the mother of the bride put on facebook. A few were tagged pictures of the bride and groom still in their dress and tux right after the ceremony on a laptop with the captions, "Girl'snamehere is updating her status on Facebook" next picture, "Boysnamehere's turn!" That's all I'm going to say about that.


Getting out of the online world and talking about relationships in real life with people some how end up being referenced to the online world anyway. Some examples: "so and so are dating." "is it facebook official?"


My question is, how does being "facebook official" make it anymore official than just saying someone is dating? Maybe we just have a whole new level of a relationship because we have facebook? Maybe the "facebook official" is the 2000s version of the 1950s class ring and letterman jacket? I really have no idea. I just know that it is a phenominon that exists, this mystic "facebook official" level of a relationship.


It's spring break and I'm in Harrisonburg, VA. I facebook stalked every single one of my facebook friends today. I wanted to do some research on this "facebook official" thing as well as general relationship status stuff. My stats professor from 3 years ago would probably be proud. Here are some of the fun stats I discovered through my facebook stalking:

• There are 1003 people total
• 455 are guys and 548 are girls
• 156 guys don't have a status listed
• 216 girls don't have a status listed
• 23% of guys and of the girls were listed as in a relationship connected with the significant other's name connected
• 3.5% of the guys with a status are listed as in a relationship with no name connected
• 4.9% of the girls with a status are listed as in a relationship with no name connected
• Out of the guys who listed a status, 43.5% of them were listed as single
• Out of the girls who listed a status, 25% of them were listed as single
• There are aproximately 3 times as many fake relationships listed by girls than by guys
• Miss America 2k8 does not have her status listed
• 4/5 members of the Click Five do not have a stutus listed, 1/5 is listed as complicated not linked with anyone

*the relationship status was judged if it was found in the information box under the persons picture, if it is only listed in the info tab it didn't count.

This is my ridiculous post on being "facebook official". I think what I'd like from this is for you to take a second and think about this whole crazy thing. Do you really want to define someone's relationship or your own by if a name is hyperlinked to the other person's name on facebook?