What is your status?

I don't know if you are Facebook users - I am, well it is not the word, addict would be more appropriate - but I noticed something odd about some of my contacts and their "relationship status".

You can let your contacts know about it or not, you either tick the Single/In a relationship/Married/Engaged/In a open relationship (okay...)/It's complicated (admitting it is not, obviously) box. Most of my contacts have ticked one of those boxes, since I registered to Facebook, I decided to not let my contacts know about my personal status.

My closer friends know if I am single or in a relationship, the others do not have to know about that, that is "personal". It is like letting your other contacts know about your political views or your religion - I am atheist, so I am in no religion, that is fine with me - these are not things you really want others to know or maybe you want them to know as some pride or challenge...

A friend of mine changed her status from single to in a relationship as soon as she met a new guy three months ago. I was quite shocked because I had not heard anything about that new love story and letting her Facebook contacts know at the same time of her friends and relatives was quite odd and sad I thought. As soon as it ended a month ago, her status went back to single.. and everybody would now know that her recent relationship had ended...

Two other contacts of mine - not friends - also went from being single to in a relationship some time ago, letting everybody know they had started a new relation with a girl, as soon as it appears on their profile, people - as always - begin to ask questions. It did not lasted long and they both went back to being single.

What is the point of this?

In addition of letting people know about your personal status, you can also say who you are dating or engaged or married to. An extra piece of information for the most curious of us!

I don't know if you heard about it but last February 2008, a woman was killed by her future-ex-husband, in England. Having just separated from her husband, she changed her status from married to single what instantly made her husband mad and under the influence of drug and alcohol, he decided to drive to her house and kill the mother of his two children.

Something to let you think about what a simple status changings on a Network Website can affect your life forever...