Facebook Status

Status: Single. Status: In a Relationship. Status: Engaged to. Status: Married to. Status -- that's quite a term to use actually - status of course can mean how one is feeling or what one is doing right now, but another use of the word means prestige. Many single women I know feel less prestigious or worthy than their paired-up counterparts - as if the validation of a man or relationship says that they are now better than they were pre-relationship. I usually think my paired-up friends have a better status than I do.

I currently have no relationship status on Facebook. This is on purpose. I listed myself "in a relationship" when I joined Facebook three years ago or so. After the break up, all I wanted to do was hole up with both Ben and Jerry under a blanket while listening to songs about puncturing the lungs of my ex. I changed my status from "in a relationship" to nothing. That's how I felt anyway- my emotional void was mirrored by my relationship status void. I thought no one would notice. I was wrong. Suddenly I was bombarded with public commentary asking what went wrong. My ex called to yell at me for outting our breakup- something he wasn't ready to do either.

So I learned my lesson. In my next relationship, I never changed my status from void to "in a relationship." I continued to be a big black box. Except of course, that I changed my picture to one of us snuggling up at a football game, and posted pictures of us frolicking next to the dolphins in Cancun and on a hot air balloon ride. One day, anyone who'd been paying attention would notice that none of those pictures were there anymore.

We broke up six months ago. I was at a party this weekend where two acquaintances were shocked when I described myself as single. After I explained the whole had-another-girlfriend-in-another-city thing, their first question was (and I'm not kidding) - "Why didn't you post anything on Facebook?" Why? Well, posting, "[ex] was banging Susan in Vegas for the past several months. Avoid him like the plague and send chocolate if you want to encourage me to live," seemed a little extreme - especially since current co-workers and at least two of my high school friend's mothers are my Facebook friends.

In the end I'm sure there are many Facebook friends of mine who are certain that ex and I are still together. Ironically I found out my first ex had poppoed the question when I asked our mutual friend how he was doing and his response was, "Well, he changed his Facebook status to engaged..."

My status is still void. Maybe someday someone will help me change it to "engaged to," but I'm not changing to "in a relationship" - that status seems much to volatile for me to voluntarily assign to myself.