I still remember the day I learned about Facebook. It was sometime in 2004, and I was walking back to my apartment with my friend Matthew after history class. We were dodging the usual suspects on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, when he enlightened me.
“Hey, have you heard of Facebook?”
“Facebook? What is that, some way to check people out without them knowing?”
“Ummm…sort of…it’s like Friendster, except better.”
“Better than Friendster? How is it different?”
“Well, for instance, it lists your class schedule, and then it will show you all the people who are in the class with you.”
“Whoa. Are you serious? How do they know what classes you’re taking, do you list them on your profile?”
“No, they have your class schedule because it’s linked to your school email account. You use that email to sign up.”
“WHOA.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, these guys at Harvard made it. Go sign up, IM me when you have your profile up and I’ll add you.”
So I did. Matthew became my first “friend”. And thus began my Facebook profile. These days, it seems like everyone is on Facebook. Old high school friends. People from work. Businesses. My relatives. I even set up a “Catbook” for my cat. It’s an easy way to get the word out…
…Which is why the boy was pretty adamant about not making a big deal of our engagement or changing our relationship status to “Engaged” on FB. He won’t even let me add his name to the “In a relationship with”, which I think is pretty ridiculous since we have something like 75 mutual friends on Facebook. (Surprise surprise! We’re dating!)
So we’re both listed as simply “In a relationship”. I deleted my blog from my profile, and there are only small scraps of information indicating that we are in fact engaged, like a photo from our e-session. We didn’t tell anyone when we bought a ring. We made phone calls to close friends when it was official.
Why? Well, simply, we wanted to avoid uncomfortable questions from people not invited (acquaintances we aren’t particularly close to). And, because they’re amazing, our friends haven’t really written anything wedding-related on our FB walls, without us having to tell them. On the flip side, I have seen many acquaintances post their engagement on FB, and I personally am not offended because I’m not that close to the couple. So I can see how posting about your wedding can be harmless too.
Do you post about your engagement/wedding on Facebook? Has anyone run into problems, or has everything been smooth sailing?