Married on Facebook

This past Sunday, the New York Times ran an  article on the way people manage their relationship status on Facebook, including what it means when they update their status from, say,  single to married back to single to "it's complicated, and back again.

According to them, "Facebook is a world unto itself with more than a half-billion residents, each asked to report a 'relationship status.'   By the end of last year, almost 37 million people had changed their status to married, while nearly 44 million changed their status to single, this according to data Facebook released last month.  These statistics bring to the fore a larger question: Why do so many Facebook users agree to announce their romantic entanglements?"

Why, indeed?   Of all the things I share on Facebook, my relationship status is never one of them.  No one needs to be able to track the progress (or lack of) in my relationships...especially since I can barely do it myself and it's my relationship.  I always feel slightly embarrassed for people when their status changes to "single".   Not because being single is bad (it's not), but because there's been a breakup and those usually aren't fun, and now it's public, which I would think makes it even less fun.   I sometimes have to constrain myself from posting "what happened" on their Wall.   I know it's none of my business...but it is Facebook and none of the stuff on there is my business.

I have a friend whose status was "in a relationship" for years, which was true technically, though he was actually married.  I didn't really have to ask why he did that, but I did wonder to myself what his wife thought of it.

I think people who post their relationship status should also post a Part Two: "it's good" -or- "it sucks".  That would make it much more interesting.  What about you?  Do you post it on Facebook when your relationship changes?



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