Yikes. You’re with a bunch of people before school in the Commons when you ask how your friend’s significant other is doing, and your friend says that they broke up a few months ago. It would have been really easy to avoid that whole scenario if she just went “Facebook official” (FBO) in the first place, but she was set so strongly against that.
Let’s be honest, Facebook is full of strangers. Your closest 600 friends do not need to know every little thing about your life. Not wanting to tell everyone on the planet that you just started dating that one guy in your bio class makes sense. Besides, there’s always that obnoxious kid in the class that announces it to the teacher. You and your boyfriend/girlfriend are now used as the example for explaining how DNA is taken from the gene pools of both parents (you two), and you know it is going to be an embarrassing unit.
What is the point of announcing to every single Facebook friend that you are in a relationship or just got out of one, anyways? When you suddenly become single on Facebook, it is irritating when everyone is saying how sorry they are for you, or that they will always be there for you.
Newsflash: it’s a high school relationship, not a marriage!
Sophomore Andres Pinto said, “It’s their choice [to go FBO], I don’t really care.” However, he added, “It gets annoying when people make a big deal out of it.”
Being FBO is a simple way to stop all those rumors around school about you and someone you’re already dating. However, it is a great idea to only date in real-life (IRL) and not on the glorious World Wide Web.
“It’s more private [not being FBO],” said junior Joe Wood. “It doesn’t matter either way if your Facebook friends know who you’re dating or not.”
Sure, Facebook is a great way to announce messages to the world, but sometimes it might not be the best choice to announce that you are in a relationship. For some brave folks out there, it may not be too bad when the bio teacher finds out that you’re dating the student behind you in class. As for some of us, well, we will be staying far from “FBO,” so Great Aunt Clara doesn’t dare ask embarrassing questions about our boyfriend/girlfriend at the dinner table.
