Relationship status is one little line in a Facebook profile with infinite pitfalls.
Sacramento therapist Stephen Grinstead has seen it up close.
“It’s almost caused a number of divorces,” he said.
He cited a couple in which the wife discovered her husband had a Facebook account where he’d listed himself as single.
“With Barbara, they’d been married and she thought they were happily married,” Grinstead said. “It was one of those ‘Busted!’ moments.”
The Facebook status options are “single,” “in a relationship,” “engaged,” “married,” “it’s complicated,” “in an open relationship” and “widowed.” The online networking doesn’t cause cheating, but it can facilitate it.
It has other problems, too – even when no one is trying to be underhanded:
• A young woman may hurt her mother by posting her engagement on Facebook before telling her.
• A young man posts that he is in an open relationship as a joke. His girlfriend is not amused, so he changes it to engaged, confusing his family.
• A woman splits up with her husband and, because their marriage was all over Facebook, spends hours in the dead of night to complete a Soviet-style purge of the relationship history.
Most of the problems are less dramatic – just “a little bickering,” said Rebecca White, a junior at the University of California, Davis.
Still, it’s enough to cause her and others not to post any status.
“It’s not something to advertise,” White said.
Tiffany Nguyen, another third-year UC Davis student, feels much the same.
“I actually took mine off,” Nguyen said. “People make such a big deal out of it.”
She admitted, though, that it’s the first thing she checks when she meets someone new.
“I’m not going to lie. That’s what everyone looks at,” she said.
And it’s another source of friction with couples, said Samantha Karlin, the “Dating Diva.” Karlin has an advice blog on meezoog.com, a site that’s a bit of a cross between networking and dating match sites.
The friction comes when a woman asks her boyfriend why he doesn’t have “in a relationship” posted on his Facebook profile.
Her boyfriend demurs.
“The guy says, ‘I’m a private person,’ ” Karlin said.
But because of social pressures, the woman feels she needs the validation. It’s like a Good Housekeeping Seal of approval, Karlin said.
“They don’t really take a relationship seriously before it’s been Facebook- approved,” agreed Malcolm Park, a University of Washington professor of communications who studies social networking.
Park thinks Facebook has merely added more complexity to what has always been complex: love.
“Making a relationship public has always been difficult,” he said.
Ending one in the spotlight of Facebook has consequences, too.
Karlin cited a married friend who got divorced and changed his status to single.
“These women were coming out of the woodwork,” she said. “It goes on everyone’s news feed that so-and-so is not in a relationship. Can you say, like, any more clearly, ‘Fresh bait?’ “
That may be clear, but there is a lack of clarity in some status lines.
What does “It’s complicated” mean?
That – and “In an open relationship” – may translate to “Stay away,” Karlin said.
The networking site ought to streamline its options and leave those out, she said, but other people think more options may be needed.
What does a gay woman do when “married” doesn’t apply and “in a relationship” doesn’t reflect the strength of her commitment?
Parks was asked whether Facebook’s seven options were enough to describe human relationships.
His answer was another question: “Is all of literature, poetry and art enough to describe the gamut of human emotions?”
In other words, it’s never going to be enough.
The solution, said experts and beginners alike, is better communication.
“It comes down to communication in a relationship,” Karlin said. “It (Facebook status) is really just symbolic. … You need to talk to each other if it’s a problem.”
Or talk before it’s a problem.
That’s what Samantha Li of Davis did.
When she became engaged, she made sure to tell her friends and family before she changed her status.
So when she did post her new status, she got congratulations, Li said, not anger.