Social networking is a funny old thing.
A couple I know and love dearly broke up recently; of course my first port of call was to ring my friend. The second? To check if they are still together on Facebook. As if that ridiculous anomaly would change things one iota. Thinking this may just be a crazy girl thing, when my partner came home later that day and made the same observation ( note to readers, boyf is incredibly rational and has to be to love with me), I realised it’s not just me - this is a phenomenon we are becoming more and more familiar with. Facebook is the final word in our social interactions.
The last serious relationship I had prior to being loved up with my current beau and father of my delicious twins happened just as Facebook was booming. We had met via MySpace (ahh you see that explains a lot), communicated mostly on MSN and met up rarely enough for me to not notice for a long long time that we was a complete baffoon. I had fallen in love with a profile, an offering that simply wasn’t the real deal.
So what happened when we broke up? One of us had to end the relationship status stand-off, that middle territory before announcing to the entire cyber world of connections that you are back on the market. That moment when you change a relationship status is a moment of control. Yes, I made the phone call to end it, but more importantly I CHANGED THE STATUS. More power to me! What a new age of social rites we live in that a simple click of a button should make a teensy bit of difference, that the real break up happens on Facebook.
Similarly the friend culling practice can be a marvellous way of letting people know where you stand. In ‘normal’, pre-Facebook tribes of society if you lost contact with people, you know, it’s usually for a reason - your lives grew apart, you had less in common, it’s not you, it’s me, yada yada. Of course, it’s always lovely to connect with blasts from the pasts via Facebook, but to actively NOT accept a friend request is tantamount to a snubbing, to spinning on your heels and pretending to not see the person to whom you rarely speak.
No-one can pretend a friend request isn’t there, it’s flashing in your inbox, appearing at the top of your screen - but do you dare have the guts to ignore it? To refuse it? What does a friend acceptance actually mean? In the same way that breaking up n Facebook is so damning and public, so is a friend request acceptance. To send a request and have it accepted by someone you have had differences with in the past is a whole pub conversation of apologies over in one click. No explanation, no going over old ground, just a public and vitual way of saying “look, it’s cool, it’s all behind us now eh”. Job done. In the same way, being brutally axed speaks volumes - being axed by a number of my ex’s mates when we broke up was, I am sure, intended to be a public flogging of sorts, but it also serves as a method of preserving privacy for the reason below...
Now, we have all, I am sure, had a few snooping moments on social networking sites. You know, checked up on old school mates, ex lovers, bosses, friends and foes - I will even stick my hand up and start the stalkers anonymous confessions. There is that validating moment when you see a picture of an ex with his hopefully-uglier-than-you wife/partner/significant other so you can gloat into your merlot and cackle like a madwoman. (Unfortunately in my case everyone seems to marry stunners....doh!) Of course that little nugget works in the opposite way - who wants to be tagged in a photo looking fat/sad/broke/anything other than gloriously healthy, wealthy and in demand for your social stalkers to see?
Facebook has a marvelous way of allowing people to be irrevocably nasty. Status updates that dig in a mysterious way - the pertinent comments without anchor, the throw away update that's says in 140 characters way more than a barrage of verbal abuse. The silent online world where we spend our time has developed a while new language of society. We break up on Facebook. I saw it on Facebook that xxx happened. I heard on Facebook that....
Hows about breaking up with Facebook itself and seeing how your social interactions change. That way its between you and your friend, not the entire tribe of Twitter and Facebook with whom we share our lives.
Go on, ring me. I will send you my geotag and hashtag that call.
Image via JayCameron's Flickr