Rules of the Dating Road

Of course, the article of grave import is not on the first page. Jammed between a page on hair removal products that really work (now dog-eared for future use) and a two-pager about how to dress your particular body shape (umm, go buy a full length mirror as a start...), it is buried in a nifty little How To section regarding how to date now. Since all the rules have changed since I was really  last on the market.  I went from the frying pan of dating, to the Hell that was marriage, to the funeral pyre that was J., to the ticking time bomb that was Scott, without really taking a lot of time to figure out how people who were truly dating figured out the rules of the road.

The road that is now very winding, and treacherous, and bumpy, and poorly lit, with confusing signs, having wild animals darting out into traffic, and not covered by the latest version of GoogleMaps.  I really do need turn-by-turn navigation for this.  I am driving around in little circles looking for the Love Shack and trying to avoid Heartbreak Hotel. 

So the three things we do that our "dates" wish we wouldn't?

It is really three things that result from one thing.  And that is "Keep it off of Facebook."

Doomed. Facebook is how this all began.  Too late. No turning back.  Facebook brought us all together. It isn't like we can go back and erase what has happened.  Any change now would surely be weird and unnatural. And visible to all our Friends, even those we aren't really on friendly terms with.

But the three reasons are insightful, in spite of their having come about 2 years too late to the party.

First up:  Facebook is bad for a relationship because it makes us define things too soon.  The anonymous guy who contributed color commentary on that idea said that when a woman hits him up with a request to get rid of his single relationship status, it is a premature question about "what they are."  He also notes, reassuringly that a guy can be serious about you without wanting a public label. 

Labels. They'll get you every time.

I always thought it was no one's GD business what my relationship status was on Facebook.  When I first opened my account, I just left it blank. Wouldn't it be obvious that I shared my life with someone, based on the nature of my posts?

And evidently, it was not enough for J.  He thought Facebook was the root of all relationship evil.  That it could only lead to cheating. Why did I need some secret, exclusive clubhouse full of friends that did not include him? (Well, duh, because you won't join Facebook so that sort of leave everyone with no choice but to exclude you, numbskull.)

I lay the mag across my tummy for a moment and grimly recall when J. did join Facebook. And when after I'd dumped him and he incredulously tried to change our relationship status to "engaged." As if putting it on Facebook made it so.

And "making it so"...isn't that what the woman in the article would be doing by asking the guy in the article to change his status?  Can it just be so without telling everyone on Facebook that it is? 

But isn't that precisely the issue I later had with Scott?  Saying it was so? 

I close the mag. I need to ponder this first tidbit of advice on a good night's sleep.