I’ve been dating boys since I was in the sixth grade. I feel like I’ve come to know the ins and outs of dating pretty well over the past few years. Most things always stay the same ... the butterflies in your stomach, the way your heart flips over at the first graze of hands. Granted, I no longer have to get my friend to give his friend a note to give to him saying “Do you like me? Check yes, no or maybe.” A couple other things have changed too. The biggest change for me has been the surge in popularity of a little Web site known as Facebook.
First, Facebook is obviously a crucial part of the beginning stages of a relationship. As soon as boy meets girl, girl rushes home to her computer to type boy’s name into her Facebook search, a practice also known as “Facebook-stalking.” Once his page is found — hopefully he hasn’t set his page to private — an intricate analysis of the boy’s Facebook page can begin. Some people can extract meaning from ancient Aztec languages, others from curves in handwriting. I can analyze every bit of a Facebook page.
If I’m mildly interested in the guy, I’ll just do a cursory look-over ... interests, his profile pictures, the usual. Some dealbreakers for me:
1. Any more than five Facebook applications but an automatic dealbreaker if any one of them is LOLcats.
2. If the past 10 people to post on his Wall are all girls and each post says something to the effect of “great meeting you the other day, can’t wait to hang out again.” Player alert.
3. If on his Personal Information section, under Favorite Books he has “I don’t like to read.” As an English major and a book freak, this is unacceptable.
If he passes this first stage, we may begin to date more seriously bringing us to ...
The dating stage of a relationship! Even here, Facebook plays an important role. Will he change his relationship status to “In A Relationship”? Even further, will he send me a relationship request, cementing me as a girlfriend? There’s nothing better than seeing your name as a link, directly to the right of his picture, for the whole world — and more importantly, all of the females — to see. God forbid he change his status to the dreaded “It’s Complicated.”
Now, even once you are together, Facebook can continue to affect your relationship. I was looking over my boyfriend’s shoulder one day as he surfed around on Facebook and I happened to see a message thread between him and an old high school friend. He was describing his new girlfriend — namely, me. The one word he used to describe me? Kooky.
“Yeah I have a new girlfriend. She’s kooky.” As in the word you use to describe your crazy, cat-loving aunt who knits and smells like carrots. So not cool. Some people may attribute this problem to the boyfriend who, out of all the words in the world, chose solely “kooky” to describe me. But no, I knew who the real culprit was: Facebook, yet again.
Last but not least, Facebook can meddle in a relationship even after it is over. If the two people in the relationship were optimistic enough to change their statuses to “In a Relationship” in the first place, they now must change the status, letting every one of their closest friends, extended family members and old acquaintances from middle school who they only spoke to twice but are still Facebook friends with, find out that they couldn’t make their relationship last. Even worse, once the two of you are officially over, you know that the one wall post that will show up first thing on his News Feed is the one from that cute new guy you met, asking you out for lunch next week. The ex calls you up to complain, and the problems just keep coming,
So Facebook, throughout the entire stages of dating, can be proven to be both a help (when trying to decide which boy to date) and a hindrance (every other time). I’m not proposing you do away with Facebook for good or try not to let it influence your decisions. All I can say is ... at least it’s not MySpace.
Jordan’s column runs biweekly Mondays. She can be reached at j.hart@cavalierdaily.com.
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