I’ve dated, been in a relationship, had my heartbroken and went through an ugly custody battle all without sharing any of it on social media.
The most challenging part about it is being with someone who you truly love and care about that doesn’t understand why you don’t profess your love for them on social media. It seems like in 2014, people value what you do on social media more so than what you do in real life!
In my experience posting about your relationship only causes a lot of issues, here are the first seven I could think of. Feel free to leave any I forgot to mention below.
1. It Gives Haters and Frenemies an opportunity to “prey” on your significant other – Once you upload an “usie” and you’ve tagged your “bae” your followers go follow and friend request your new boo. Now they are looking through photos of him/her making an assessment of who they are, trying to find something bad to say about them and finally some may go to the extent of flirting with them online to try and get them to engage!
2. It Makes Public What Is Meant To Be Private – In my opinion romance is one of those things that is meant to be private! Of course, to each their own, but it just seems that once you change your relationship status the force of Facebook is against you.
3. It promotes drama! Yes the drama, it gets deep and messy! – Even if you only have a few Facebook friends, you never know who is friends with your Facebook friends or who might take a screenshot of something you post and share it. I knew Facebook was a hot mess when I saw an old friend from my childhood posting photos with my friend from high school’s baby daddy. I didn’t pick up the phone to talk about it but later on in my timeline the two girls were going back and forth! Needless to say, if she had kept her relationship off of Facebook they may have made it! #DoinTooMuch
4. It invites your ex’s into your new relationship – Once you put your new relationship online your ex’s are bound to catch wind. Yea, of course you may want to rub it in their face especially if you’re doing better. But do you really want your ex inboxing your new significant other? Do you really want to taint your new relationship with that type of negativity and chaos?
5. It Can Cause a Competitive Element In Your Relationship – A friend of mine got into an argument with his girlfriend because she claimed he didn’t post as many pictures of them together on his page as she did. Really?
6. It can harm your following – If the primary use of your page is to promote your career (like mine) your supporters may have mixed feelings about you posting “usies” with your new boyfriend or girlfriend. I have even seen up and coming artists and athletes lose followers over this. Let’s just be honest, especially for artists, a lot of your fans don’t care to see all of that mushy stuff!
7. It creates a major dilemma if you break up – Do you keep the pics up or do you take them down? Now you have a permanent online footprint that you were with this person. How do you explain them to the next person you are with (trust they will ask about them!) and finally, how tacky is it to showcase your new relationship every 6-12months? What? I’m just saying.
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