Commentary

Facebook Sees Millions of Broken Hearts (and Weddings)

by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, January 6, 2011

WeddingCake-B

No one rhapsodizes about the romance of statistics, but the statistics of romance -- now that's a different story. With about 600 million members today, Facebook has seen plenty of relationship drama over the last year... and like every other important part of the human experience, it's all quantifiable, baby.

According to figures publicized by Mashable, over the course of 2010 precisely 43,869,800 people changed their relationship status to single, presumably tapping out the sad news amid mounds of used tissues (or with a celebratory drink in hand). Meanwhile 28,460,516 changed their status to "in a relationship," to the great relief of mothers who were quietly concerned, maybe even wondering where they went wrong; 5,974,574 changed their status to "engaged," to the dismay of their aging bachelor bros; and a whopping 36,774,801 took the plunge and got hitched (it feels like I attended, like, 40% of these weddings).

What can we conclude from all this? Crunching the numbers, it would seem humanity is still more or less committed to the traditional ideal of a monogamous, pair-bonded relationship. Because if you add up the people who changed to "in a relationship," "engaged," or "married," you get a grand total of 71,209,891 -- almost twice the number who moved in the opposite direction (to being single).

I'd also like to address the relatively small number -- 3,025,791 -- who changed their relationship status to "it's complicated." I'm still not clear what "it's complicated" is supposed to mean; I guess that's why it's complicated? The way I see it, there are only a handful of reasons someone might say "it's complicated," but none really justify using this vague copout.

For example, if you're in a relationship but angling to get out, well, there's really nothing particularly complicated about this: you're still in a relationship until you leave, at which point you're single. Likewise, if you're in a relationship but cheating, I suppose that may be logistically complicated, but it doesn't change the fact that you're in a relationship (with someone you're cheating on). If you're questioning your sexuality, I guess that could be "complicated" in the sense of "confused" or "ambivalent," but again your actual relationship status is pretty clear-cut -- either you're in one or you're not. If you're swinging, that's covered by the "open relationship" option.

If you're in a relationship or married but you're "taking a break," then it's a judgment call: if it seems like you'll probably get back together, then I'd say you're still "in a relationship," whereas if you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop, then you're de facto "single." Of course, I concede that this may be a dangerous move: on March 12, 2009 a 26-year-old British woman, Haley Jones, was stabbed to death by her common-law husband after changing her status from "married" to "single."

There are of course many gradations along the spectrum of antipathy, but ultimately they still fall into one category or the other. "Sleeping on the couch" almost certainly means you're still "in a relationship," albeit a (hopefully temporarily) troubled one; "in the doghouse" is a further step towards actual rupture -- but still not quite there yet. And of course we can't forget that some of these status choices have a rhetorical element: keeping your status as "in a relationship" when you're "taking a break" indicates a willingness to work it out, setting it to "single" sends the opposite message. "It's complicated" sends no message at all to your partner -- and quite possibly the wrong one to the casual profile-browser, who is left to guess whether you're cheating, swinging, maybe gay, sleeping on the couch, in the doghouse, or all of the above.

facebook, social media

5 comments about "Facebook Sees Millions of Broken Hearts (and Weddings) ".

Check to receive email when comments are posted.

Andre Szykier from maps capital management, January 6, 2011 at 11:52 a.m.
Another example of suspicious statistics.
Checking the status of relationship box assumes that people are diligent in changing it whenever something happens. Not true...people by nature are sloppy in reporting such matters.
A better way would be to augment this data with blog, text,tweet harvesting for context about relationships. Add to that image recognition (what new faces were added) and I might believe such bogus statements made by the author.
Reply

Monique Ramsey from LJCSC, January 6, 2011 at 12:42 p.m.

I'm laughing so hard - such a funny (and yet still informative) article! :) Made my day...

Kerry Lange from Yahoo!, January 6, 2011 at 2:28 p.m.

I'm one of those "It's complicated" people so I can explain. My fiance and I had a commitment ceremony a few months ago with our friends in attendance, so emotionally and in the eyes of our friends, we're married. We're not, however, married in the eyes of the law or our parents. So yeah, we could say we're in a relationship, but it is a bit more complicated than that, and quite honestly, more interesting that way!

Jerry Foster from Energraphics, January 7, 2011 at 8:20 a.m.

Obviously Erik hasn't been reading the popular Roissy (Citizen Renegade) blog at roissy.wordpress.com because it says that the best way to seduce a woman is to say "it's complicated" when she asks about what your current status is with other women.

In any case, I refuse to fill out that section at all and, obviously, the majority of the 600 million users agree with me that it's none of the public's business to know "relationship status".

It's what I call "Too Much Information".

Even if you're using Facebook to date, that field is too much information. Even "it's complicated" is unnecessary to have to say. Tell the people you want to date what you want them to know about your "status" and leave it at that.

Going back to the Roissy blog attitude: An Alpha male is going to have a harem but not brag about it (even if he's sexually faithful to one woman, he's going to have others chasing him). A Beta male is going to tell the world he loves one woman when he actually would sleep with someone better looking if he ever got the chance, which he probably won't and which he certainly won't now that he's using Facebook to broadcast to all the world's women that he's not even emotionally available to them.

Facebook should be about expressing yourself, not tying yourself up with baler twine as a packaged statistic and thus serving to limit your options by giving out too much information. The worst thing people do is give their actual birthdate year on Facebook. That's plain stupid for many reasons, the main one being that it can prevent you from getting a first date if you're over someone's pre-set limit.

Tanya Gazdik from MediaPost, January 7, 2011 at 4:04 p.m.

What Jerry said. I originally had my status as "married" with that lovely connection to my husband's page. The more I thought about it (and watched a few people change their status and the ensuring comments) I began to find it rather juvenile, shades of high school, actually. I've since watched a young friend of mine go from "in a relationship" to "single" and back again -- a half dozen times!! Too much information!! As for the "it's complicated" status....I know a woman in her 40s who was married, got divorced and is now living with her ex-husband. Now that's complicated.