Death of Dating: Murder by text and other 21st Century Norms (Part 2)

"Her friend just tagged her in a picture from last weekend. I text her (clear throat at the ever-present text) to see what she was up to and she never got back to me..."

Well, well, what do we have here? It's Facebook ("FB") in all it's glory! I was introduced to FB about 4 years ago; had never heard of such network (was currently a MySpacer), couldn't become a member cause I was no longer in college and dismissed it from my mind. Until that day in history when our lives turned upside down. Dun, dun, dun; FB became public to ALL who wanted to join! WooHoo. What an adventure it has been seeing how many people you can locate and befriend; old co-workers or classmates, past acquaintances, ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, current friends and future flings (that's right I said it, future flings...more to come on that). Then the inevitable happened. Drama on the home front...everyone's experienced it. Delete friend. Phew, got past that bump in the road. As the days go on, you wonder why the crap you still have a profile, but 250 friends later, you're still going strong.

Why do we facebook? I mean, does it really cause any harm? Flip the question and ask yourself, does it bring about any good? Have you saved lives by being on FB? (I guess so if you joined this group or that fanpage, perhaps...but more than likely not.) We lived years upon years without the play-by-play of our friends lives, would it be so bad to go back to those days when things like, asking what they did last weekend, was left for vocal...who am I kidding (don't want to go to extremes)...text conversation? I am on FB all day. Guilty. It's open in a tab on Mozilla, I'm addicted...not to the point that I get text alerts, but I am a religious user. Good or bad? I guess it depends on how you use it.

For the most part, I think it facilitates friendliness. I find it's great for keeping in touch with very little effort, with friends I grew up with that I don't see on a regular basis, and overall, FB is fun. However there are a few drawbacks...drawbacks relating to dating. Again, I could be wrong. I've never professed to be all knowing, but from the swarms of people I talk to and have heard from, FB can be detrimental...in some aspects.

Judgment Day
How many times have you been told "I have someone I want to hook you up with" and you respond with, "Are they on FB? I'll look them up and let you know". Okay...whatever happened to liking someone for their personality? Right off the bat you're judging the person by their looks (I know people ask for pictures and it's not just a FB thing). People post funky pictures as their profile picture all the time and if they were judged by that?! Sucks to be them. Yeah, not a very good indicator folks. Also, I would even deduce to say that people look at the number of friends they have and judge them accordingly. Either they have too few, and well obviously they're a complete social outcast, or they have too many and then you just become some sort of friendship whore that adds people just cause they like having "friends", and that definitely says something about you, right?! They could go to the extreme and sadly take a gander at that persons friends. You know, you associate with those you're similar to. If you have an over-abundance of ugly/nerdy friends...well, count yourself out for that date if they don't like ugly/nerdy people. None of which are at all true indicators of how you really are, but again, we've past judgments before even accepting a date. Unfortunate for you, if for that one day you had the worst picture posted as a joke with your other FB friendlies or your numbers were too high/too low or you have one too many ugly friends...you just outed yourself (unbeknownst to you) of a date and perhaps a life of happiness. You're on show, put your best foot forward people!

Getting to know you
So you meet this person, hit it off, get their number and begin communicating. Super!!!! ...then the inevitable happens. "Sooo, are you on FB?" "Uh, yeah" "Cool, I'm going to add you right now (via Smartphone of course...while they're having text with you...everything's SO instantaneous). You add them cause it's fun, and you want to know more about them, and then they can see how cool you are when your other friends post witty banter about what happened at the party or how amazing I am with my family. Blah blah blah. For whatever reason, you add them. Milk was a bad choice; no bueno. What's the point of going on a date now? They know everything about you. (Later you get a text that night. "So, you like to dip cheese crackers in chocolate milk? But only in the mornings, right?" "What the? How do they know that? ...ahh FB.") Not saying everyone divulges everything about themselves in their profile, but again, allowing them access into your world via FB really puts yourself out there regardless of whether you had intentions of doing so or not. I guess if you do get to go on a date, they would have been able to 'study up' and know all the quirky things to talk to you about...but why not let nature run it's course and have that information become apparent while out with one another versus in the realms of the web!? Perhaps maybe we should, when asked, say we do have a FB profile, but that they'll have to earn the privilege (just one date or two is all) of entering into the circle of trust we call FB? ...just a thought?!

Jealous or Game
Say you begin to hang out with this person and you accepted their friend request on FB. Things are just beginning, you think it's going well, communicate at least once a day, twice a day, whatever you're 'things are going well' meter portrays as going well. Then it happens. The opposite sex starts making flirt comments about the person you're interested in, or uploads pictures of the party they were both attending the night before showing your interested person all up against the boy/girl. [Jealousy. Frustration. Rage. You begin to ponder what this is all about. ...it's just a tagged picture.] Mind you, the individual that is writing on your lovers wall is just a good friend that they've been friends with for quite some time, no interest whatsoever, but you don't know that cause you've just begun to hang out with this person and they haven't felt the need to tell you about said BFF. Jealous for no reason...right?! Or another scenario. You text "lover" and don't get a response, but then happen to...what do they call it, FB stalk, your lover and notice they just responded to someones wall via 'FB on Blackberry' and didn't feel the need to get back to your text you sent a few hours ago. [sigh. I guess I know how lover feels about me. (all from not texting in a timely manner, yet had the time to FB. Obviously lover went out their way to disregard your text.)] AND to make it worse, it's the boy/girl that's in all the pictures. I guess one could be jealous or one could be intrigued and pursue said lover even more? Regardless, if we didn't have FB to interfere with dating, there'd be no wondering or frustrations...nature would just play it's course on that one...perhaps further down the road and after you were able to make your mind up about the person from conversations and dates versus FB shinanigans.

Overall, I do believe Facebook has changed the way things work these days. I don't think it's all negative. It's a good way to communicate and flirt in a different means, maybe show the person the real you uncut; a true indicator of how a person really is outside of the initial, polite behaviors of when you first meet someone. You never know what embarrassing thing your friend's going to post about you on FB or what crazy quiz you accidentally broadcast to your FB nation. Regardless, it's definitely made dating unique in the 21st century, but is unique a bad thing? I guess when it doesn't work out like you want it to, it is.

...I think I may create a new profile with all the right answers, with the hottest picture I've ever taken, and with the perfect mix and amount of friends, and send future lovers to that profile versus the real one. Don't want them to know I own five cats and love unicorns just yet...