Facebook can ruin your life in a lot of ways. If you post some stupid Youtube sex video, you can get you get fired or expelled, you can plummet yourself into debt with its addictive Facebook games, and it can even infect you with AIDS. We won’t analyze all of those as dangerous risks, but one thing is sure: dating on Facebook is far more complicated than having sex in real life.
Sure, with Facebook’s privacy settings you can to moderate the agony, and you can even try an impossible-to-maintain directive that you won’t accept friend requests from people you’re dating, but it’s almost sure, that Facebook will somehow get closer to your promising relationships and challenge them with some confusion ultimately.
The site can be a blessing for dating, and trying to have a sex partner in some aspects too, of course, but for now we’re talking about how it makes things chaotic. Let’s look at five methods that Facebook’s destruction of personal boundaries and privacy has made finding security in love and sex more difficult.
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1. Don’t overanalyze or you will get mad
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He posted on your Facebook wall five times today — so he may be in love with you? She keeps writing status updates about the handsome men in her office — should you be jealous? You’ve barely seen any updates on his profile since you had a conflict — is he concealing them from you, is he so unhappy that he’s not engaging, or is it just a coincidence? Why does she keep untagging herself from photos with you in them? And what’s the deal with this latest youtube video that her ex has posted, that she keeps seeing?
If you’re already feeling self-doubting or distrustful, your companion’s Facebook feed will add loads of fuel to it.
It’s clearly best not to make a big deal of any fanatic or stalking behaviors, but love (and sex) push people to do stupid things. Sometimes you just can’t help but wonder what this or that update means for your relationship. Chances are all of those issues means nothing, but that won’t stop those distressing anxieties.
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2. Your Ex is Having Sex with Others, and You See All of it
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That fellow just wrote on her wall about the wonderful time they had last night, and she just broke up with you a week ago. That hurts. And a lot.
It does all have something to do with privacy. In this situation, it’s not yours, but hers. It’s hard to forget someone you’ve just broke with, but it’s even harder when you see that she’s having a terrific time without you. Facebook makes sure that you will feel the pain even more.
It may be important for Facebook users to cautiously watch their feeds so that nothing comes up that will cause any suffering to any past love, or maybe their exes are responsible for clicking “hide” in the news feed until they’re over it. If at least one of those things doesn’t happen, it can get painful for one person, minimum.
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3. New Liaisons and Separations Are Public
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The most definitive Facebook dating dilemma is: Who makes the relationship approved on Facebook first? It would be uneasy to declare yourself to be in a relationship if your (you thought) partner doesn’t share your feelings.
The most important landmarks for changing the Facebook relationship status is: joined first date, first kiss, first sex together, exclusivity talk, and the first “I love you” on the list of important relationship. It’s one of the most awkward landmarks because it’s public by necessity.
That first status change isn’t the only problem. When a relationship ends, how soon is it acceptable to change back to single? Doing it right away seems coldhearted, but waiting too long makes you look obsessed. And it’s really disgusting that somebody tells to her partner that she’s dumping him or her by publicly changing her status over to “Single.” But this can happen.
We’ve also heard stories of people seeing their loved ones change to “In a Relationship” with someone else. That can hurt.
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4. Facebook is a Record of Every Liaison Misstep You’ve Made
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If he spy on you all the time, he can look back and see all those consolation posts from friends about your last separation. Maybe he’ll see your previous lover’s heated wall writings after you let him know that you wouldn’t be seeing him again. Maybe this new lover of yours will see your childish posts or youtube video links. Worst of all, he might realize just how much of a loser your last companion was and choose, that you’re playing in different leagues.
Facebook records everything you’ve done since you made your profile. It’s best to prudently curate all that information to make sure none of it comes back to disturb you later, but that takes a lot of effort, and some things will slip through the cracks.
To make things even more annoying, you can’t modify the privacy settings for things you’ve already wrote. You might have hidden that incriminating status update from your last boyfriend, but since your new one just friended you today, you’ll have to remember to go back and delete it if you’re afraid he’ll be browsing.
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5. Your Lover Will Be Jealous Because Of Other People’s Posts
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This has caused many separations. Some people have a tendency of jealousy, and as with item #1 on this list, the flame of insecurity will get doused in gasoline.
Let’s say some girl has a bunch of innocuous guy friends who are innocently posting flirtatious messages on her wall. Most folks are okay with flirting, but some can’t handle it, and something about seeing it written out on Facebook makes it worse. That girl’s boyfriend will either become passive aggressive or burst out in jealous rage, setting the stage for the end of an otherwise positive relationship.
This one illustrates the same point as all the others: Facebook brings us too close to people too quickly. Dating is as much about maintaining healthy and safe boundaries as it is about intimacy — at least at first — and social networking makes that harder than ever. It’s not dissimilar to dating someone who works in your office; you can’t control the exposure you’ll have, and that can be a recipe for disaster.