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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
(Disclaimer: This post harbors no intentional distress or insult toward anyone ever truly hurt by Facebook relationship status or Facebook-related heartbreak. My approach is from the angles of influence between technology and society in our modern world.)
What does the future hold for the Facebook relationship status?
Obviously the thought train is topical due to this weekend’s looming holiday, but even without, it proves sufficent food for thought. Its fun to see if any relationship statuses change around this weekend. That will be an extra special dose of “Aww” or “Oh no!” or “yes! She’s/He’s single!” due to the romantic aura this weekend. (Readers of Haiku Monday might understand why I say ‘weekend’ and not holiday. The epic return of arguably one of my first loves is easily challenging the legacies of previous V-day weekends)
Less tangentially speaking, the Facebook relationship status is what I wish people were writing about this week. Facebook recently loosened up their status API and rumors are circulating that there could be a Facebook vs. Twitter battle somewhere down the road for social networking ego stroking supremacy. While indeed interesting and stimulating to the marketing/social media chunk of grey matter I house, I was far more enlightened by a recent conversation I had with friends about those nifty little hearts and broken hearts that pop up year round in the news feed.
Take the examples of online matchmaking, cyberdating and Facebook news feeds – at first we resisted, and often taunted these strange, ‘unnatural’ methods of interaction. Nowadays its not at all weird to hear about people in loving relationships or even marriage stemming from online meetings. Facebook features like the News Feed and the Status Update started off rocky but ended up being the most often used functions of the whole site. I think the relationship status is next.
So, What Are We?
Generation Y is far more comfortable than previous generations with leaving relationships undefined. I took a random sample of responses to the issue of possibly needing options beyond Single, Relationship, Engaged, Married or Complicated. Maybe it was just my sample, but I found the responses to be rather absurd. I will always linkback credit and hat tips to anyone who contributes content to my posts, but these quotes I think I should share anonymously. Again, these are not my verbatims.
What Does The Facebook Relationship Status Need?
There were other responses, but lets keep it classy here on AlanIsGood. Before I explain my personal response and recommendation, lets review the players and the playing field.
Impassioned To A Fault
There are two mindsets ever present in the dramatic sequence:
VS.
Hostility and insecurity are at the heart of both ends of the spectrum, but as much should be expected from the scenario, as the status will be shared with a lot of people. Rummaging through the possible responses from friends, family, coworkers, ex flames, almost-but-not-enough dates and the people to whom you recently said “Sorry, I’m not looking for a relationship right now” can be a demanding task to deal with emotionally. Lasting relationships find compromise.
Workarounds and Compromises
Some couples, pairings, on-again off-agains, and beneficial friends have found ways around the status issue without even knowing it. A keen eye and a few years of Facebook experience can read between the lines and crack the code of the “undisclosed status.”
Its Complicated With Generation Z
My younger sister and her friends are all married (but not) and seem to constantly be in Complicated relationships with other same-sex friends that I know are rather heterosexual. I guess that’s one way to avoid the situation when you get a nagging significant other – sorry, I’m married to my best friend. At first I dismissed her and her generation from this assessment, but I actually see how their corruption of the system is tied into my final opinion of the matter.
The Custom Relationship Theory
My generation doesn’t want to pick one of the five labels, and it seems the next generation really doesn’t want to play by the rules. The Facebook relationship status will soon fall by the wayside or lose its meaning entirely. It will always be easy for married people, as there couldn’t be a more solidified and final case for the status announcement. For everyone else, its either customization or bust. My response to the earlier quotes is that there really should be an open response text box for people to announce whatever they please, however they please. Just as the general Facebook status evolved from “at work, at home, sleeping” into a free response text box, the relationship status has to follow suit. Some couples will never agree on a unified definition, but I bet that many would feel more comfortable announcing their status if they could express it the way it makes sense to them.
Its the only way the Facebook relationship status will be accepted and respected, says me.
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I agree with you completely. Another thing I have noticed is that some people take these ridiculous relationship status very serious. For example my friend recently got into a relationship, however he neglected to change his status. The next day he was confronted by his new girlfriend asking questions, including but no limited to, “what, I’m not your girlfriend?”, and so on and so on.
There you go. It really does happen that way.
I would often joke about it until I found that it really eats away at people. There was this horrible news story recently where a man went too far after his wife changed her Facebook status…
http://tinyurl.com/c6ntrj
“I’d like to see how long people have been listed together so I have a better idea of how difficult it would be to poach the guy away from her.”
Oh, how this could go both ways,,,,,,
Ha.
^^^ I never knew girls thought that way too. To think it was just us. I suggest adding adjectives in front of names. Including but not limited to sleazy/tainted/contagious inidividual X is sleeping with naive/undaunted/equally slutty person A, B, C, and D
Yikes! Your words hint at a good story, Elidet. I believe people who practice such are called ‘Relationship Status Vultures.’
Brett, solid idea. Some people practice a kind of “Relationship Blogroll” anyway, they might as well display it somewhere. Why not have a ranking system, a single adjective to describe the person, etc.
Really, if people found out that they were in someone’s Relationship Blogroll, I bet that some of them would be super offended and stop talking to the person – but others would stick around to knock some of the competitors out of the rankings.
Alan, I love your thoughtful and thorough approach.
It always used to creep me out when all of my girlfriends “hid” their relationship status. Why wouldn’t you want to flaunt the fact that you’re single? Keep the possibilities open? But then at one point in my life I realized that the “hidden” status was the only one that fit me!
I have one friend who always, no matter what, is just “in an open relationship.” I used to make fun of him for it, but now I realize that that is probably one of the more accurate and definitely under-utilized options.
And then there’s the ultra-true montra that most girls I know recite, “It ain’t official til it’s on Facebook.” Then you know both parties are willing to shout their love to the mountaintops
Emma, good point. It shouldn’t be so polarized, should it? If you’re hiding your status, you’re being too conservative and not coming out to play. If you show your status, everyone thinks you’re a lovey dovey spaz that wants the whole world to know about it.
The ‘Open Relationship’ status is one that I have probably never seen used legitimately. I do know many ‘Singles’ and ‘In A Relationship’ people who would be far more accurate to be listed as such, however.
I always thought that it should be an open box as it is very difficult to put Alan is in a relationship with fapfapfap….
To answer your implied question about whether Facebook will customize or bust, I’d say the latter. History has shown that innovative companies have a limited comfort zone with their ability to be innovative, and that at a certain point they must be overtaken by newer, fresher companies willing to push boundaries further. Witness America Online, which at one point was considered the bleeding edge of mainstream accessibility for the Internet, and which now is a by-word for eclipsed failure. Also witness MySpace, which is fast following in AOL’s footsteps.
Facebook is in its late autumn, and soon to be winter, evidenced by its derision in social commentary sites and the recent news of its having sold user information to corporations. Can it reach a new spring? Past evidence suggests that it won’t. It’s core userbase, technology geeks starved for the Next New Thing, will find another home – one that will embrace their users desires to be joined in a relationship with two women, a goat and a favorite spatula.
Also, I find it ironic that most people deride the strangeness of a relationship fostered online between two people who have never met, forgetting that it was not uncommon for folks to meet and fall in love by written letter in the 19th and early 20th century.
Mike, I like the seasonal metaphor for the downfall of social networks. I feel the winter is at hand for Facebook. As Facebook focuses on improving things like social ads, site design and just now loosening the reigns on the standard status update API, where are the improvements that will actually progress functionality?
Let me extract my contact email addresses. Let me sort friends by things like Relationship Status or date added. Allow me to send out mass emails to my entire contact list until a majority decision rules that I am a spammer. Improve login security – do something useful from that short list, before a better site shows up that will.
Excellent point you make about the written letter relationships, too.
To be quite honest I lol’d heartily thinking about fanciful cursive LOLs and OMGs on weathered parchment paper written in quill ink.
I’d also like the option to see who they had been “linked to” prior to me. This works on two levels:
1) Similar to Brett but in the past tense, if they hooked up with a questionable character (tainted) or have dated someone who just looks slightly crazy and capable of stalking him/me/us, I want to be aware going in.
2) I’d be able to tell if their mate selection graph is on the upgrade or the downgrade…if the ex was significantly less attractive than me, I know that I am an upgrade and will be revered…if she was much hotter than me, well, that creates a whole slew of problems that only women worry about.
Laura – That would be amazing. The relationship status should be permanently archived. If it included hookups and dates, that would be surreal. What we’re talking about at that point is the holy grail of relationship history, the fabled Permanent Record of Dating.
It shouldn’t matter to two people who really like one another… but we all know that we’d want to check it out just once if we could.
If the previous guy was hotter than myself (theoretical situation, of course) I’d actually feel good about it. Its not everyday that you can one-up one of the ultra beautiful people and show them that substance beats hype.