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It’s Complicated

There are several reasons I love twitter. Mostly because it’s an open market of ideas that leads to dialogue among like-minded, and not so like-minded people.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my current dating situation and all that it entails. Just trust me when I say VH1 should give me a call to star in my own show. Not all of these thoughts are solely based on my circumstances, but about love and relationships in general. Everything from being the main chic to infidelity to dating someone only for the time being crosses my mind.

So today I used twitter as a forum to release my thoughts; as I was dying to hear what others thought on this issue…

@WrittenbyBene*taps mic* Guys: If a man’s FB relationship status says single, but he’s in a relationship, what does this mean? Should his girl trip? about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter

I didn’t know what type of responses this question would warrant. But the answers I received were comical and shockingly real. Who knew professing your relationship to the cyber world of Facebook would evoke such feelings from folks.

Prior to my world of double standards, wanting it all and frankly just not trusting this one particular cat; I could care less about a damn Facebook status. No offense to anyone else, but I thought grown adults changing statuses every other week from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated,” was a waste of time. Even if your relationship wasn’t a rocky one, I still didn’t necessarily think the status meant anything.  Why would you want everybody to know you and your significant other just broke up? It is my belief that relationships are hard enough without all of Messybook in your business.

None of the guys I’ve ever dated seriously used Facebook. Attribute it to them being the prototype blue-collared workers. But most of them rarely used the computer when it came to making their money, or for much else for that matter. Therefore, social networking sites were of little use to them. I loved it this way until…

My on-again-off-again, I don’t know what the hell we’re doing at any given moment, “boyfriend” of over a year proclaims we’re in a relationship. Me: For real, for real? You sure this is what you want? I repudiated this because to be honest, I just didn’t think he was ready. In an effort to prove he was serious, since clearly all the swear to Gods, you can keep my phone for a day, blah zay blah didn’t work; he suggested I add him as a friend (yeah for a year we weren’t even FB friends & never even discussed it), and he would change his FB state of singledom to “in a relationship.” I called his bluff.

As of today we’re finally FB friends.  But still no relationship status change. Now not to make excuses for him, but he honestly has not been on FB. I’ve seen him everyday for the past 3 weeks and the last thing on his mind is logging on to FB. Because I’ve recently had an epiphany about our “relationship,” I stopped asking him about it and really have no expectations of him changing it. And it’s not as if I was going to change my status. That was just not going to happen.

But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t curious to hear what my tweeps had to say about the question I proposed earlier. And boy did they go in:

ABluePearl @WrittenbyBene – no. sister shouldn’t trip. just change her R status 2 single & show him the door. see? easy! no drama. about 3 hours ago via Twikini in reply to WrittenbyBene

Mr_Genius_ @WrittenbyBene yes about 3 hours ago via SocialScope in reply to WrittenbyBene [Yes as in, yes, trip]

infodapoet @WrittenbyBene rofl… if he hasnt changed it at all and its DEAD SMACK under his Profile pic… then yea… but if u had to search then no about 3 hours ago via web in reply to WrittenbyBene

passiondeja @WrittenbyBene– *Raises hand* That means he has ANOTHER chick who he is ALSO in a relationship with and she just so happens to have FB too! about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter in reply to WrittenbyBene

passiondeja @WrittenbyBene– OR, he is in a relationship, BUT has a wandering eye. He’s not opposed to cheating. Gotta keep his options open. SO TRIP! about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter in reply to WrittenbyBene

DanTroisi @WrittenbyBene he’s prob just too lazy to change it haha about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter in reply to WrittenbyBene

chela816 @WrittenbyBene There’s a problem if it says single. If he’s just trying to be private or forgot to set it, it would say nothing at all. about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to WrittenbyBene

passiondeja it’s probably gotten to the point that he tells people he’s SINGLE b/c they are off and on. He doesn’t value her. He knows that she will ALWAYS come back, so he can do WHATEVER. And if they’re that ON and OFF, then they need to MOVE ON! about 2 hours ago via UberTwitter in reply to WrittenbyBene

Damn. The last tweet had my heart racing. Truth hurts. As you can see, surprisingly most people had an issue with a man not claiming his woman on FB. Even the guys saw this to be problematic.

I’m still indifferent. I don’t know that his not changing his status means anything other than, him not changing his status. Yet I’m not completely convinced of the opposite either.

If your significant other hasn’t expressed to the world via FB that they’re in relationship, does it mean they’re hiding something? Should you trip? Does a FB status really define how that person feels about their boyfriend or girlfriend?

  • Soooooooooooo I literally laughed out loud and startled my husband when I was reading this post. We had a similar situation early in our relationship and I wondered why he didn’t want to “claim” me on Facebook, not taking into consideration how truly private (read: “antisocial”) his ass is LOL. He simply didnt want people in his business and the more I pestered him the more he refused. When I gave up, he gave in ;-).

    This post is so intriguing because it ties back into that God forbid conversation about black women overlooking men for relationships etc. Well what happens when you don’t wanna claim me, ninja? Then what?

    Great post. As usual.

  • Words of a Revolutionary

    Much love for reading and commenting! Girrrl you can’t be scaring the hubby like that. LOL. I’m glad somebody related to this. People on Twitter were going in. Yeah and see in your husband’s case I can completely understand the issue of privacy. Certain things just truly should remain sacred. In my next relationship, dare not say marriage as I don’t want to get married, I don’t even think I want to be his FB friend. It’s just too much. But I think it is incredibly interesting how when you finally just left him alone about it, he changed it on his own terms. That’s a real man right there.

    Good point about the whole black women overlooking men. As sistertoldja has written about this eloquently on her blog, this is definitely another conversation that needs to be had in the black community. There will always be a double standard when it comes to women and men. Always. Even when in a FB status. I could only imagine the responses men would give if it was the woman who didn’t want to claim her man on FB. Ohh Lawd I don’t want to think about the reasons they’d come up with. Lol.

  • I would tell him what you said, but you know….LMAO

    I’ve learned that you should treat your social/romantic interactions on facebook in the same way as your professional ones – discretely

    Well, at least folks were going in and starting to think about this aspect of the black love drama 😉