We subject ourselves to concepts such as Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn and Hashable, as a way for people to better connect themselves to the outside world. Our friends, strangers, colleagues and acquaintances have the opportunity to view into the windows of our lives and into our souls and personalities. For the value of networking, the value of friendship, the value of memories and funny stories, we have been spoiled in a way to have technology work for us.
What about the concept of social media in the terms of dating? How does that help or hinder anyone when it comes to courting or if you’re in a relationship? Surely we have seen instances of relationships ending because of discovering incriminating evidence of a loved one or a severe misinterpretation of what someone has written. Surely, we hold these truths to be self-evident, and this happens in one way or the other; the question is whether we as people take it so seriously so that it affects our daily lives adversely?
The answer to that question is yes and no. People have a dependence of social media, but it is up to us to use it to how we see fit. I’ve experienced, over the course of six years, how social media has influenced the way I’ve communicated; especially when courting and dating with the opposite sex. People have seemed to use social media to connect ourselves in and out of the digital world, but others in many cases take it too seriously.
I’ve had plenty of encounters when it dealt with handling social media and dating. My first encounter with social media and dating was with a roommate I had in college. Facebook started spreading amongst the colleges in 2005, and that we were amused by the concept (and our work was directly affected by it too). While I found the opportunity to connect to fellow classmates and friends, my buddy used it to hook up with a girl (his first crush had a picture of her in wonder woman costume holding a beer and was looking for “Random Play”). After several weeks of courting (and by courting, I mean me helping him not botch it up), he finally met her offline and hooked up subsequently. Days after the encounter, she broke his heart amongst other scares (and countless jokes). He learned a valuable lesson (and I found a deterrent).
I never had a problem with relationships and the use of social media until I turned 21 and had dated a girl for over a year (we refer to her as “She who shall not be named,” or Princess Batshit). Her insecurities were so apparent and problematic, where she freaked out about every post, questioned (and followed) everyone who came in contact with me, and even got pissed if I didn’t respond to her wall. Of course, I didn’t care about what she posted or what she was doing (although giving her my password was a big and rather stupid mistake).
The problem was letting this slide, and letting the behavior continue for over a year. Allowing Princess Batshit to dominate not only my Facebook Wall, but dictating the relationship with it led me to give her an ultimatum:
Do not dictate this relationship on Facebook, or else!
Clearly this was a strong indicator of what I no longer tolerated, but rather a trend that I noticed in my relationships, as well as others (yet still put up with it). Making social media outlets such as facebook and twitter a priority or focal point in people’s affairs is a very bad idea. Of course, aside from posting about each other’s problems, come the few that posts everything about their personal lives, including dating or phallic devices. I should save that for another conversation.
When I wrote about Miss Decorum last December, I had an inkling that she wasn’t into me (after six dates, I was right) because she didn’t add me as a friend on facebook. Surely this notion was a bit immature of me, but at the same token this was a first (knowing that most girls I dated would give me their facebook links within the first week of talking). If a person is remotely interested in you, one would take some initiative to at least share facebook profiles. Even if it means a little stalking, at least one would take the opportunity to look into the personalities of the people they’re interested in dating.
All of this without the third degree…because some people would inappropriately or wrongfully question, assume, and in rare cases, accuse prematurely about people’s past occurrences (unless there’s some kind of an red flag to be worried about). I didn’t ask Miss Decorum if she had one, but for her not to ask anything of the sort…
…I knew that it would be a red flag in the realm of interest, but that’s as far as it goes.
The same would also apply to twitter. Of course, you are thinking that by a flirting tweet (and you really can’t tell if they are), defining a relationship on strictly that, and not on other matters in your relationship or courtship, can be damaging to them.
I know that there are true exceptions to this rule, such as catching a cheater, finding incriminating evidence of a crime, or an action that would cause a red flag to be raised. Instances like those are fine considering its hard evidence (unless you try to be Anthony Weiner).
I know that we as a society are well-connected (well, a vast majority of us to be exact), and that we use social media to our advantage. However, as much as we would love to post pictures of our friends and kids, post every nook and cranny about our lives, or even make our relationships “Facebook Official” (My girlfriend and I did this well into our relationship because this was not a priority for us). The moral here is that we shouldn’t let it dictate our relationships, no matter how professional, personal, and intimate they are. Allowing things to manifest our personalities can risk losing perception of the bigger picture—how our friendships can be sacrificed or dating prospects implode—when we decide to deal with the electronic world instead of the real world.
P.S. The one thing I should note, is that despite my rants about the problematic issues associated with dating and social media; and that I don’t mind the posting of positive stories with your significant other. We like to see happy things and forward progress. I’m a fan of this, but not if every post deals with “My wife just spun a ball of yarn,” then it gets a bit out of line.
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