"In A Relationship With..."

The hardest thing I’ve done all year is… no, not write a book… no, not win a complex mortgage fraud jury trial… no, not even climb the Great Wall of China in December… it was changing my relationship status on Facebook from “Single” to “In a Relationship”.

Why?

Well, as many of you know, I got engaged and unengaged on Facebook not so long ago, and it was hands-down the most humiliating experience of my life so far.  A time line of the degrading events as they occurred in real time:

-          As of February 2009, I was “Single” on my FB account

-          In March 2009, I changed my relationship status from “Single” to “In a Relationship” (a “status update” was immediately sent to all of my FB friends along with a little red ♥)

-          In June 2009, “In a Relationship” became “Engaged” (and with it another status update and corresponding ♥)

-          In October 2009, I was not “married” as expected but instead, yep, you got it, back to “Single” (this time, the status update was sent with a corresponding…

Oh my, the drama and WTF is up with that broken friggin’ heart?!  I mean, that’s just downright mean.    

But, it was much worse than simple status updates on the Information portion of my FB profile over a nine month period.  It was much, much worse, because I made these changes for all of my FB world to see.  And, save for the last one (see “October 2009”), I made them on purpose due to the sheer happiness and genuine joy (not to mention blind love) I was feeling during my rapid-rate-of-speed-romance before it crashed and burned to the ground into a pulverized grease spot.  Yes oh yes. 

However, the change in October from “blissful bride-to-be” to “depressed and down-on-her-luck ex-fiancee with a $4000 wedding dress hanging in her closet” was not meant to be published.  Instead, I meant to subtly and oh-so-quietly delete my “engaged” status without anyone noticing – almost as if it had never happened.  There was one major thing I forgot to do though in my attempt to “disappear quietly”:  press the “Remove this from my Facebook feed” button.  Oops, to say the least.  From the moment I renewed my “Single” status, it was broadcast to ALL of my FB friends and all of HIS FB friends (including HIM because I had not de-friended him as of yet, another big mistake). 

My FB missive was immediately followed by a barrage (and, I mean a barrage) of “Oh, no, I’m so sorry!” and “You poor thing!” and “You must feel horrible!” (yeah, duh) and “I had no idea you two were having problems” and “Can I come over with ice cream and a copy of Bridget Jones Diary” (no, you idiot, that has a happy ending) and (last but not least) “Sorry to say I saw this coming!”  Ouch.

Like I said, humiliating, degrading, and mortifying were an understatement.

I vowed never again to post anything on my FB relationship status, not even Single.  No, when I’m someday married with kids, my FB relationship status will say… nothing, nada, blank, as if it doesn’t exist. 

So, you can see why I was horrified when the man I’ve been dating asked me just last week:

“Can you put ‘In a Relationship’ on your FB status, please?”

Panic attack commenced as of… now.  I went white in the face, thought I might vomit, and the room started to spin.  My palms sweated profusely.  There was a heartbeat in my head.  I actually thought I might be having a heart attack.  I am not exaggerating any of this.

“Um, hmm, let me, um, think on it, babe.  You know where I stand on this topic, and you know why.”

His face fell to the floor.  Ugh, I had hurt his feelings.  This was going to be rough, I could tell.  Just as I was about to wallow in over-indulgent self-analysis, he said the most interesting thing:

“You know, I’m really understanding about the fact that a book is about to come out about your love life before I met you.  Even though I wanted to burn Chapter 3 in which you detail exactly how you had sex with your ex-fiance for the first time, I didn’t burn it, and instead I’ve been totally supportive.  I’m even cool about you blogging about love every day.  But, this is where I draw the line.  Don’t you think I deserve to be recognized on Facebook, at the very least?  Your writing is one thing, but I want to be recognized in your real life.”

Wow.  He had a point.  I never thought of it like that.  In fact, I never thought about him, only myself (hmm, maybe this explains my track record in the romance department). 

So, after thinking about it for all of five seconds, I did what he asked – because he asked for so little – and because it was the least I could give (and I should probably give more).  I changed my FB relationship status to, you got it:

“In a Relationship.”

I have no clue what the future holds.  Of course I hope it has a happy ending, but I’ve experienced enough sad ones to know that may not be the case.  I may someday in the near or far future be yet again…

“Single”… And single on Facebook no less.

Or, I could be “Married with Kids” instead. 

Stranger things have happened… like a girl whose heart had been broken into tiny little pieces could walk into a restaurant and see a guy who somehow managed to convince her to move on with her life and take a chance with one single stroke of a key… well, really two keys:

“Delete” followed by “Enter”… followed by “Hello, it’s very nice to meet you.”