Beth Cook is a dating coach and wing-woman who throws private dating events for San Francisco’s most awesome and unattached. She also writes and draws about her own dating experiences and would love to hear from you. Want advice? Have advice? Send her an email.
Does a relationship exist if it isn’t on Facebook?
If so, I might be single.
When my last significant relationship ended a few years ago, I promptly changed my relationship status to “single” and cleared away all photographic evidence of our relationship.
Since then, I haven’t touched the relationship status setting or uploaded one photo of me with a guy—and I happen to be madly in love with one.
“Why the hesitation?” I ask myself.
It is not relationship uncertainty, though I’m sure that feeling plagues many, rather it is my recent desire to be more private.
Why must we declare our love to lukewarm friends and acquaintances? Does that make it more real?
There is something a little desperate about drawing attention to the fact that you have someone to cuddle with. I have e-gagged a few times having stumbled upon digital make-out sessions and just-thinking-of-you bouquets. People, would you post these in your cubicle at work or frame them for your fireplace mantel?
Of course, there is also something very practical about broadcasting your sickeningly sweet romance; it sends a message, loud and clear: I’m not available.
Admit it. You’ve friended people who’ve piqued your interest and “researched” whether they were single or not. No public relationship status or snuggly photos with someone usually means one thing: single!
Or not, in my case. I’d like to think that a couple who isn’t obsessed with capturing every candlelit dinner and garden stroll for public consumption is actually more secure. I don’t need “likes” or “oohs and ahhs” to rest comfortably in relationship bliss… but that’s just me.
Photo by swilk0