In addition to all of Facebook's other contributions to the current language lexicon, they've also introduced the concept of "winning the breakup." Since they display relationship statuses: break-ups, make-ups, and nearly everything in between, it creates a bit of a competition among exes.
Before Facebook, once you broke up with someone you might not know if they were dating other people, but they clearly publicize it. You might see your ex RSVP to a party on Friday night. Obviously, to win the breakup and make him jealous, you go all out and make yourself hotter than you ever were when you were dating. (I'm definitely guilty of this.) It's also important to change your status to "single" before your ex: otherwise you run the risk of looking like you can't let go.
Or maybe it's a race to be "Facebook Official" again: to find another serious relationship before she does and cause her to go into a breakdown with lyrical status updates documenting her ache and angst to have you back.
I've seen many breakups use Facebook as a weapon, and as an outsider, it's kind of funny. What would these people have spent time on post-breakup without the social network to fall back on? Probably going out to coffee houses or bars and meeting other people, or at least finding solace among a few close friends vs. plastering crazy for all 5,467 of their friends to see. And if this is you, please realize that all 5,467 of them are irritated by the ploys.
Have you ever been in one of these competitive break-ups, or do you keep your personal life away from Facebook? Were you the winner of a breakup? What is the point of this competition, anyway: to see who can cause the most pain, or maybe the most jealousy?
Comments (25)
I do post some things on Facebook, but I'm not in the competitive nature. I do hate that I catch myself looking at her profile alot. Something that I need to work on, but so used to even during the relationship.
Never done it competitively and actually only ever listed one of my relationships on Facebook, since my current one is the one I see myself in for the rest of my life :) It's incredibly childish. No one needs to know. And guys don't care who you date after they dump the crap out of you...especially if they're jerky.
I keep my personal life away from Facebook and try to keep it away as much as possible on my Xanga blog.
Hahaha! I've only dated two people since I've had Facebook, and it wasn't made Facebook official until we had been dating for at least a month. I think the relationship status is a great tool for single people who are looking to find out if someone is available, and a nice way to show the seriousness of an active relationship. It's the immature people who give the tool a bad name.
I have one friend from high school who breaks up with and de-friends his girlfriend like once a month so it goes from single>in a relationship>friends with girl>in a relationship with girl>single>friends with girl>it's complicated>et cetera. That is pretty funny to watch. The ones I really hate are the ones who list themselves as married to their best friends, or married to their boyfriend of one month and make statuses about their "hubby."
If I were to break up with my boyfriend, it wouldn't be competitive or full of insinuative statuses because we're both mature and could act like adults about it.
That picture is amazing, haha! I know a girl on my FB and her page literally looks like that. No one really talks to her or leaves her comments, so her wall is full of relationship and status updates.
Haha, no. First of all, my Facebook is set so my relationship status updates don't get posted to my wall, and when my current boyfriend and I started dating I just took my relationship status off, then a month in put in a relationship... but it's only in my info section so it's not really being advertised, so someone would need to look in the section. My ex actually said he didn't know I was in a relationship when I told him (I don't remember exactly why I felt the need to tell him). I will admit, though, if he had changed his status quickly after we brokeup to in a relationship, I probably would have felt a little hurt. But my changing my status had nothing to do with my ex... it was just so people knew, especially if they were interested in me or something. It makes it less awkward when I don't have to tell someone I have a boyfriend if they ask me out on a date :)
Is this what they have to offer on Facebook? If that's the case, thank goodness I don't have a subscription to that or MySpace or Twitter or whatever else is out there.
I NEVER list my relationship statuses online, anywhere. It's my personal life, and everyone I've ever met who's ever added me to a social networking site does NOT need to be privy to all of the happenings of my personal life. My relationship status is pretty much a need-to-know thing... the boy knows, of course, probably his parents, close friends, and my close friends... and any girl who gets any ideas about him finds out pretty fast, too ;) But that's about it.
Facebook relationship statuses look reasonable if your actual relationships are reasonable. I just don't get into relationships that will end in a week.
nah. i hate when people have really obvious angry statuses directed towards one person. HOW OLD ARE YOU.
no i barely put anything up on fb, my status is in relationship with current bf, but that's about it. i think if we broke up, i'd just take my status off again. and block his page. i just wouldnt care to know, it would hurt, and i'm not ever out for vengeance. so. just no.
@laytexduckie@xanga - Used to do that, took me months but I finally took her off my friends list just for that reason.
I used to have my status not show up at all. After I broke up I switched it to married. Been set to married for the past year now heh. My ex took a few months but I think she put hers up to single after a while, before she didn't have hers shown at all either.
i was really against putting my relationship status on facebook for years because it's really not everyone's business.
I have my relationship status hidden. I'm single but I don't feel it's important to let everyone know that. Any type of facebook war is really annoying.
I don't like putting myself as "in a relationship" on facebook so i normally just keep myself as single or hide my relationship status.
I remember going out with this guy once and he called me one day like seriously practically crying and i was like "wtf is wrong with you?!" and he starts asking me why i'd broken up with him, so i was like super confused, i had no idea what he was on about and then he came out with "Alex (his friend) says that your listed as single on facebook, did i do something wrong or something?! Whatever it is i'm sorry" and i literally was hysterically laughing down the phone.
Like you can't actually be with someone if you're not "in a relationship" with them on wastebook. Its sooooo sad haha
looks like someone thinks too much about ex's.
i only put my relationship status up to ward off creepers.
My status isn't on there for people to know. I'd much rather prefer it to not be announced when I am single or not. My tagged pictures can be quite unflattering so I keep those to myself too by making those private. There's probably no point for me to get a facebook besides the fact that it keeps me in touch with many people I don't get to see anymore and I know so many people who check their facebook and not their phone. Ridiculous.
lols wow -_-!
I think thats silly. I wanna avoid that public break up thing on facebook, so I edited that my relationship status change doesn't get posted.
That's incredibly crazy. Relationships are best left unpublicized.
People should just start being a little more classy and mature.
No need to air your dirty laundry for everyone to see.
I posted and keep it updates on my relationship status since mine do not change every year. I am in a very stable relationship now but my girlfriend sometimes tell me don't change the status to single even if we break up some days later. Because she wants to be the one to end the relationship status. lol
That's terrible.
its good when you're single and trying to see if the guy/girl u like is single or not...
but it becomes kinda....stupid when people think its fun to like be single for a month then date for a month so that their ex would be jealous....
i've seen alot of people do it....and in fact....my ex is one of them
This is all actually quite amusing to me. I don't post things like this on my FaceBook page. I've only seen one other girl among my friends post about her break-up with her boyfriend as it was happening (and he didn't have FB,) and one woman make a single status update that her divorce was finally final... But that's it.
I didn't know that people were using it as their own personal break-up battle ground. I kind of find the idea of going to that much effort ridiculously funny. I can see it as a good place to vent and to gain support when one needs it, but to carry it out to such an extreme is a bit pathetic.
Seriously... Go out and get a life and learn to move on. If an ex wasn't worth the effort to stay with in the first place, why make such an effort over the breakup?