There’s an interesting phenomenon on Facebook: as soon as a girl gets out of a relationship and makes her new “single” status known, all of her guy friends suddenly jump in to console her. From that moment on, numerous guys will continue to post sympathetic messages on her wall and status updates until the relationship status has returned to “In Relationship”. Personally, I find the phenomenon to be extremely entertaining.
The phenomenon is now part of a strange mating ritual which has evolved on Facebook. Whether or not it’s a conscious action, Facebook has become a tool for displaying our social value. There are then odd “rules” that come out of transmitting that social value into relationships. In the case of the guys who immediately post comments on the change of a female’s relationship status to “Single”, the guys are essentially displaying their lower value.
Providing rules for social dynamics on Facebook is difficult however as the rules seem to change from person to person. I can see it now though, a Discovery channel show on the mating rituals of humans who are connected to Facebook. (Said in an Australian accent) “The female demonstrates her ability to cook by posting images of the meal that she just made for dinner. The males collect photos which depict themselves in a position of influence and post status updates which illustrate their cleverness.”
Honestly, regardless of what status the relationship is changing to, they always tend to drive a number of comments. I’ve included a few of those status updates below. Do you think the “Post-Breakup Facebook Effect” deserves its own term? Have you seen any interesting post-breakup comments?
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facebook is nt a way to meet new people. no one answers u. all my friends inquire about each other's relationships cuz theyre curious .
Comment by efoufe — December 8, 2009 @ 12:07 am
Hehe, I have had friends that where turning there relationship status of to have more privacy and that resulted to all there friends getting a notification that "x is no longer listed as in a relationship" and yes, they where bombarded with relationship comments for the longest time.
And once I gave my self as a birthday present to a friend of mine and when I was turning it of the day after nothing happened so I clicked ok again and again…so my friends got "Bryan in single" again and again…and again. I got a lot of e-mail from people seeing if there was something wrong
Comment by Bryan Allen Smith II — December 8, 2009 @ 6:48 am
My Favorite are the XXX went from "in a realtionship" to "it complicated" all the comments are priceless.
Comment by Limor — December 8, 2009 @ 8:06 am
LMAO on this!!!OMG.like this is so true……hahahahaha.facebook has turned to a status brandishing site and its become 'the case of the ex'.like pple's new gf n old ones are at logger heads .its a cold war going on here….pls fb cordinators ….HELP!!lol
my ex, after getting wind of d fact dat my hubby n i r tight, actually posted his recent gf's name on fb,waitin for a reactn,wen he got none,he went ahead n posted a pic of dem kissing!!!still no reactn.i wonder wat he'll do next….post a pic of dem f***in?lol he will still get no reactn n he just doesnt get it dat unlike him some pple r really busy with work out there!!!
Comment by diamante — December 8, 2009 @ 9:28 am
meanwhile all her girlfriends start trying to date her ex. It ain't rocket science….its hormones
Comment by Online Guitar Tuitio — December 8, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
I need Facebook in my life.. after all, it's full of people who are so far out there, that I feel better about myself!
Comment by Zanypickle — December 8, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
Moral of the story: Don't post your relationship status unless you *love* being flooded with strange messages.
Comment by Pearlsphere — December 8, 2009 @ 5:18 pm
Quote: "In the case of the guys who immediately post comments on the change of a female’s relationship status to “Single”, the guys are essentially displaying their lower value."
That's kind of harsh. Unless I've misunderstood, haven't considered the possibility that a male can be a platonic friend and actually care?
Comment by Raj Kumar Dash — December 9, 2009 @ 12:02 am
@Raj,
To quote "When Harry Met Sally…", men and women can never be friends because the sex thing gets in the way.
At least I own up to it. Society has tried to latch on to this "platonic friendship" thing, but the fact is, guys are friends with girls they think they have a chance with.
Comment by Jared R Forbes — December 10, 2009 @ 5:00 am
@Jared
And girls are 'platonic' friends with guys they think they will never want to have a chance with.
Comment by trinity — December 10, 2009 @ 5:29 pm
Loooll hhahah i love the comments
Comment by Me — December 13, 2009 @ 6:44 am
It's worse than that… the relationship status thing is implemented so poorly, it was a joke.
When someone removes their status entirely — not changing it, not having broken up, but rather, just removing the status from FB entirely — it announces on everyone's feed:
"Josh is no longer listed as 'in a relationship'"
You can imagine the response the user then gets… "oh, I'm sorry to hear that"
or
"Josh is no longer listed as 'single'" — would get responses like, "Wow, who's the lucky lady?"
It's all so silly and poorly thought out. I mean, why does REMOVING your relationship status need to get announced in a feed, and why are they wording it in such a misleading way?
Comment by Josh — December 14, 2009 @ 11:21 am
Uh, hellllllo, FB instigates comments by prioritizing stories about relationship changes in the News Feed. Years ago I went to a talk about FB Platform development and everyone seemed to be aware of this fact. Ask Blake Commagere.
"why are they wording it in such a misleading way?"
It's intentional! It's juicy gossip! It's a *social* network.
Comment by TC — December 15, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
@Raj You're right, not every guy commenting on her status would necessarily have the same motive. If they are specifically talking about the examples here, then they are definitely showing low value. These guys are just showing the fact that they don't really care about this girl's heart.
@Jared It is quite possible for guys to have platonic relationships with girls without hoping for a chance. My best friends since childhood were and are girls and it had nothing to do with 'hoping'. Unfortunately most guys have been conditioned to be shallow and controlled by their hormones so they don't even understand what being a real friend to a girl even means. It's quite noble of you to own up to it but it doesn't mean it's the only viable perspective.
Comment by Nate — January 13, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
im lost how do u block it from showing on others pages
Comment by krystal — May 4, 2010 @ 10:15 pm
actually learned a couple of things here.. thanks!
btw.. some of the comments were actually poor and haven't been given the time to think about before they posted it.. and some are pretty much biased..
Comment by elusive — June 10, 2010 @ 2:35 pm
you can instantly remove it from your profile after you change it, that is the simplest way to hide it from feeds.
Comment by jj — July 22, 2010 @ 1:49 pm
Are you sure that it will not appear on the newsfeed? In this article http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-privacy-new-2... it says:
"Simply go to your profile privacy settings page and change the “Family and Relationship” setting to “Only Me”. While it would be great to make that information public, it’s currently impossible to control whether or not a relationship status change creates a news feed story. As such, I believe it’s better to play things safe and block users from seeing your relationship status. "
Comment by aamm — November 14, 2010 @ 1:09 pm
Some people in my list DELIBERATELY show the notice on the change of their status so that they can get a lot of attention and comments.
Comment by Ben — December 28, 2010 @ 3:42 am
Maybe this person wasn't posting on facebook for your reaction. Maybe they just simply moved on and don't care about what you think anymore?
Comment by ksteven4 — July 5, 2011 @ 9:22 am
People can get so wrapped up in "relationship statuses." Sometimes it's best to avoid the whole facebook tagging all together.
Comment by New Breakup Diet — December 4, 2011 @ 7:12 pm
it is exactly that which i need keep sharing
Comment by Facebook Love Status — January 4, 2012 @ 12:04 am