Dating in the Social Networking Era

My new beau recently changed his Facebook status to "In a Relationship." The gesture, while very cute and much appreciated, was a bit weird for me for several reasons:

1. Multiple women commented on the change with notes like "lucky girl!" or "and hearts break around the nation" and "I second lucky girl!" among other flirty, innocuous compliments. I know he's a good looking dude and women hit on him wherever he goes, I just didn't realize he had fans around the nation waiting in line..

2. My status is and will remain "Whatever I can get" as that option no longer exists for new Facebookers. Having joined this little social networking phenomenon when it was open only to college students, I was given that option in my relationship status choices and me being me, will now and forever be looking for whatever I can get. (Note: it's actually one of the few things in my life that even remotely resembles a trophy case...unless you were around in the beginning, you can never have that status. I was, therefore I do, in your face! Yes, stupid and immature and awesome. Whatever.)

But this is the first time that I've ever been in an actual relationship while on Facebook, and so is there some sort of dating rule about updating your social networking relationship status? Am I inadvertently sending a message about my feelings by NOT updating? The whole thing weirds me out a little.

3. His sister, who is NOT on Facebook, texted him a few days later to tell him she heard about his relationship status update. What? Really?


I talked to him about it, mostly to let him know that while I'm very much into him, I won't be changing my relationship status. Thankfully, he was alright with that.