Status report.

A long time ago I read a blog post that addressed the issue of the "Facebook relationship status". At the time, I remember thinking that relationships are hard enough without the added stress of having to define the point when it was okay to share with everyone you know what your situation was. I have always believed that certain things should be kept private, and I thought this was probably one of them so at least for me, this was a non issue.

This past weekend I changed my relationship status for the first time ever.

I changed my relationship status without having "the talk", without having been pressured into it, and without really caring about what this would mean in the big scheme of things. I pretty much acted on a feeling. A feeling that seemed perfectly reasonable to share with friends on the internet because it is one I have been expressing in real life for some time now. A feeling that makes me happy.

It never crossed my mind that there would be politics involved with this process or that real life perceptions would take a back seat to a selection from a drop down menu. What's more, I never thought that by acknowledging the obvious in an open forum I would be giving people license to comment on or criticize my situation.

Maybe I am sensitive about the way things have played out because I have never played this game and as such I wasn't prepared for some reactions that have done nothing more than make me seek out a validation I don't think I need. Still, it does not seem reasonable to me that in a world where there are children dying, nuclear reactors exploding, humans being trafficked, and space shuttles being launched, that whether or not I type a name on a box or whether or not he changes his status is an action item to be discussed.

More often than not, I don't care about people what think. To a certain extent, I am pretty egomaniacal and uber-protective when it comes to certain things. Still, this irks me. It irks me because real life should trump the internet. It irks me because even though there is a comment link, that doesn't mean it should be used.

Certain things are not up for discussion- especially not in a public forum and definitely not by people who don't share in your day to day.

If nothing else, I've learned a thing or two about friends and family and that sometimes, even the most obvious, when it's spelled out in black and white is simply TMI.