I Love My Husband... I Promise!
Last week reservations to that nice Italian restaurant downtown were booked, the latest romantic comedy to hit theaters had a full audience for once, and men and women alike were poised – smartphone in hand, ready to tweet, post, and instagram proof of their love at every opportunity.
For the past few years, social networks have become increasingly more integrated, and essential, in Millennial’s lives. With this, one critical decision has been added to the stressfulness, and excitement, of developing a new romantic relationship -- “FBO” or no?
It seems that our relationships are now determined by our Facebook profiles.
Are you dating someone? If so, why does your profile not have a relationship status?
Are you just in a fling or are you serious, because if you were serious you would absolutely have changed your status… right?
If you don’t have a status, or it still says “single”, and you are actually in a “serious” relationship are you subconsciously indicating that you are not really dedicated to the relationship/that person?
When we do fill in that “relationship status” box and the automatic status update with photos and a timeline of your relationship appear in friends, families, and people-you-met-once’s News Feeds - they will be able to review all the major markers of your relationship. From the time you “met” (meaning the time you became “FB” friends because of course this is one in the same) to all the events you’ve attended and groups you both have belonged to in between. God forbid you get engaged and Facebook outs you by revealing you've only met three months ago! Some eager beavers out there have even incorporated an “update Facebook status” ceremony into their wedding! Has Facebook become our proverbial mountaintop from which we shout our love for our husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/partner/dog/cat/fish? What if some among us don’t participate in this online demonstration, what does it mean?
On Valentines day, Facebook-ers managed to make good use of the whopping 63,206 character allowance for status updates to write the love of their life, or more skeptically of the month, a love letter. Statuses were commonly accompanied by photos of flowers, plates of food, chocolate covered goodness, couples kissing, couples kissing and holding babies, couples kissing and expecting babies, and couples kissing and holding an animal they treat like their baby. It spoke of their deep love and dedication to one another - truly heart touching words carefully and poetically crafted to their significant other and posted for all to witness and awe over.
As I logged into Facebook and saw all the manifestations of love I found myself feeling guilty for not posting something sooner and I quickly swiped over to the update box to write an epitaph of my own. But right as I began, I stopped, and thought, “Why the heck am I doing this?” I then went downstairs kissed and held my husband and thanked him for his presence in my life.
I love my husband, I promise. But I’m not inclined to include posts and pictures of every interaction and detail of my marriage on Facebook, particularly the ones that would be inevitably flagged. I have a wonderful marriage that I am exceptionally grateful for and it doesn’t feel any less wonderful for the fact that -that person I haven’t talked to since middle school doesn’t know that my incredible husband actually suggested we watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (and I mean the 6-hour version) for our “Valentines Night In.” True Story.
I think this is a call for self-reflection:
- Why do we post all that we do? Are we trying to compensate?
- Are we being distracted from living our lives on something other than a cloud-based platform?
- Are we trying to prove something to others and ourselves through our posts?
- Why does someone else care about what I’m posting?
- Is it obligatory or a badge of honor?
- Are we posting out of need for “likes” or are we simple posting for “funsies.”
Am I innocent of over-sharing? Of course not. I am a twenty-something millennial after all. But in the words of Mark Twain:
"Everything in moderation.”
There are many manifestations of this “over sharing” tendency on Facebook that has plagued our generation, but out of all of them lets please hold on to one. For those who post updates, or more specifically rants, about their “unnamed” significant other and their relationship skirmishes, please continue. It’s funny, diverting, completely inappropriate, and has provided me the most heartfelt chuckles on many a day. And it will also provide prospective employers with the knowledge that you are emotionally unstable. But just a word of advice, maybe if you used your eloquently written status updates to talk through your relationship pitfalls, in person, with your significant other instead of blasting it to the world, you may still have/be able to patch up your relationship.
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