It's beyond complicated

Morning peeps (people peeps), tweeps (twitter peeps) and feeps (facebook peeps),
hope you had a fab weekend, sorry it’s over. The only upside I can think of is that I get to post yesterday’s Sunday Times Column. Hope you enjoy.

A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick

IT’S BEYOND COMPLICATED

How did we ever survive in a time before Facebook? No wonder it was called The Dark Ages. Back then how did we hook up with all those people who were mean to us inhigh school? Today the same boys and girls who made us desperate to matriculate so we’d never have to see them again are some of our very best FBNBFs.

I see that somehow I’m even Facebook friends with one of my old school teachers. Almost twenty years ago he used to bust me smoking at Bennies, the area behind the school tuck-shop where all the reprobates hung out. Then he’d shove me in Saturday detention. Now he pokes me and likes the posts on my wall, oh how far we’ve come. Hi Mr Tucker.

And BF (Before Facebook) how did we stalk boys we thought were hot, or check out pictures of our exes, and gloat with our friends over how fat and ugly their new girlfriends are?

There’s no doubt about it, Facebook has literally changed the world as we know it. Mostly for the better, but there are a few things we don’t have it to thank for. Farmville for one, and if one more person sends me a request in causes I might chop off my own arm, just so I can’t ever be tempted to use a mouse again.

Anotherthing we absolutely can’t thank Facebook for is what it’s done to relationships. For some odd reason, these days the first thing you do when you get into a relationship, other than shag like rug burn doesn’t exist, is update your relationship status on Facebook.

Bu tthis desperate urge to overshare and let the world know our romantic status has been known to backfire. A friend of mine had a problem recently, her husband who only visits Facebook a couple of times a decade or so, paid his bi-centennial visit and decided to update his relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘married’ and then logged out again for the foreseeable future. And so for the next three weeks my poor friend was forced to field a few dozen calls, texts and emails from as far afield as Magoebaskloof, and thank all the well-wishers profusely but explain that they’d actually already been married for five years, and their son just turned four. Remember? Awkward!

For keen to overshare, Facebook offers nine standard Relationship Status Updateoptions to choose from. There’s: ‘Single’, ‘In a Relationship’, ‘Engaged’, ‘Married’, ‘In an Open Relationship’ (I’m not judging, but really?), ‘Widowed’, ‘Separated’, ‘Divorced’ or ‘It’s Complicated’.

I’d like to suggest that some amendments be made to this selection, because life just isn’t that simple and relationships aren’t that black and white. What about all the other options in-between? If Facebook is supposed to be a virtual representation of our real life communities, then they definitely need to add afew more options.

There should definitely be a Facebook Relationship Status Update option for ‘Just Shagging’,or what about ‘The Jury’s Out’, whichis a perfectly natural emotion when you’re in a new relationship. There shouldalso be a ‘Not as into him as he is to me’option. And another must-add is ‘currently cheating’ hey, look at the statistics, a ton of you are doing it. There are so many possibilities FB should probably consider a drop-down menu including relationship statuses such as; ‘gold digging’, ‘husband hunting’, ‘polygamist’, ‘friends with benefits’, ‘meh’, ‘rebounding’, ‘having pity sex’, ‘having revenge sex’ or ‘in a drought’ to name just a few. Because I don’t think those standard nine options are doing anybody any justice.

Just ask Candice.

Some months ago a girl named Candice, living somewhere on the internet, updated herFace book Relationship Status, to read: ‘Candice is in a relationship with Martin’. To which Martin responded in the comments section below: ‘Just because we had sex doesn’t mean we’re dating!’ Awkies!

You see, it’s this kind of situation where my suggestion would have come in handy. If Candice could have just changed her relationship status to ‘currently making sweet, sweet love’, and Martin had changed his relationship status to ‘just had a quick meaningless pomp’, then Candice could have changed her relationship status to ‘having revenge sex with your brother.’ And Martin could have changed his to ‘punching fist through door’. See, problem solved. You can thank me later Mark Zuckerberg.