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Old 05-06-2008, 12:06 AM   #53
corranged
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Threads: 41
Posts: 3,332
Epiphany, you crack me up.
Quote:
With FB, Why deliberately confuse people? (i.e., make it appear that you are really making sexual orientation allusions, particularly when accompanied by text that suggests).
I'm going to give you a longer answer than you need. Fake relationship statuses are not to confuse people; they're for fun, and they're almost always between two girls or a girl and a gay male friend. Very few facebook users are actually engaged or married, and since people use facebook predominantly to network with their real life friends, confusion is rarely a problem. On facebook I am listed as engaged to my best, female friend. Everyone knows we're not actually engaged, and only people who don't know us both would think we're in a relationship. I identify as a lesbian, but I do not have my sexual orientation listed on facebook (I'm not a fan of labeling myself in such a public forum), though the vast majority of my facebook friends know. My best friend, the one I'm "engaged" to, is straight, and right under where it says she's "Engaged to ---------" it says that she is "Interested in Men," so people won't believe that she is really engaged to a woman.

Onto the subject of why people list false relationship statuses with their friends... Facebook likes you to list whether you're single or in a relationship (and if so, whether you're engaged, married, etc.), and that's not something many people necessarily want announced to the world. If you're single, it will ask you whether you're interested in dating, a relationship, etc, which is sort of an embarrassing question (i.e. "I'm single and unhappy about it"). If you're in a relationship, it may be something you want kept quiet or you may not want to go through the process of having to change your relationship status if you break up. Not having a truthful relationship status (i.e. having a fun, fake one) also eases the way in the beginning of a relationship when you may not want those kinds of labels. You can of course choose not to answer any questions about your relationship status or orientation, which comes across as sort of mysterious. Having a fake relationship usually comes across as kind of fun. The purpose is not to trick people or fake them out. It's usually easy to tell a fake relationship status from a real one, and it is a way to help keep you from announcing your relationship status to everyone you know.

Quote:
And if people are Coming Out on FB, I don't know that that's the best vehicle.
Coming out to parents and close friends should of course be done in person. But coming out is a lifelong process, and facebook makes that process much easier. When I started college, my facebook said that I was "Interested in Women," which really made coming out at college a breeze. I avoided the sometimes awkward assumption that I'm straight, got to network with other gay and lesbian students, and was able to be fully out from day one of college.
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