In the second I read this (or the change from ‘In a relationship/married’ to ‘it’s complicated’), I feel:
- Connected to that person: I’ve been there. I can only imagine how sad it was (or elated, depending on the ended relationship).
- Connected to Chris: I remember that, even though we fight sometimes, it’s important to work hard on our relationship because it is so important to me and I’d hate to have it reduced to a Facebook newsfeed notification alongside someone adding a new app.
Love relationships are still the most interesting, telling pieces of our human lives. This little newsfeed feature is both revolutionary (it opens up our lives to one another in fantastically vulnerable ways…ways in which are, I think, helpful) and frightening (reducing it to a notification trivializes the heartache around this event - how often do we reach out to our friends when we see this notification to get the full story and comfort them like true friends?).
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angela and i broke up three weeks ago, and i can’t tell you how many friends called me after i changed my status. hell, even business colleagues are pinging me post-break up to give me words of encouragement when my status seems shaky over the past few weeks.
it’s pretty strange — as much as the news item can’t represent the context of the split, people are in the know and reach out like never before. nice, in a very weird way.
How did I miss that? I must have been away! So sorry to hear, man.
I once twittered something during a fight with Chris and the number of emails and phonecalls I got was astounding!
People care about our love relationships…even ‘friends’ we haven’t met before.
i remember that tweet. i held off to see what would transpire, knowing that you (if anyone) would follow up with details.
strange times.
Sorry, this comment is the same comment as my two previous ones but has no links so I hope it works. I hope my other two comments won’t appear magically now. (smile)
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Hello Tara,
You are right that this is probably “revolutionary” and “frightening” at the same time. Although my gut feeling is that it may be just little bit helpful but mostly harmful.
I am old fashion. I believe time heals and time add wisdom and insight to our understanding of a relationship and things. If we feel compelled to update our facebook status quickly or promptly, it may force us to take away the tool of “time”.
I wrote a blog entry this April about the passing of the 82 years old June Callwood. If we are “expected” or “feel pressured” to update our Facebook status promptly, I don’t know if we will still have 63 years long marriage like June.
I feel sad for the “Janice” out there.