Dating qualifications. Everyone has them. Maybe you won’t date someone who smokes, or someone who doesn’t practice the same religion, or someone who isn’t at least five inches taller than you. Maybe you can’t date someone who doesn’t love The West Wing, or cheese, or spontaneous road trips.
Or maybe you can’t date someone who doesn’t have Facebook and Twitter, because social networking is the new dating divide, the new thing that people can point to and say either “definitely yes” or “definitely no.”
The definitely yes is for those of us who live our lives online, who blog and tweet and update our statuses and stay perpetually connected to each other. I couldn’t date someone who didn’t understand that.
And yet this thing that I love is also the thing that most complicates dating now. We’re addicted to the feed, to the real time stream of information about the people in our lives and we’re tiptoeing that little line between glorious information orgy and the complete destruction of personal privacy.
Before dating me, it’s irrationally easy for a guy to find out more about me than he knows about some of his closest friends. And I asked for this, I chose to put so much of myself out in the public space, but I wonder if all of this transparency is really just making us a generation of damn good liars. Maybe what social media teaches us is how to be a creative secret keeper, how to put exactly what we want in front of the eyes of the world, and how to hold everything else behind the curtain.
And then, of course, there’s the mess that happens when the relationship doesn’t work out. When he’s tweeting at other girls and there are pictures of him on Facebook with who knows who on his lap and you’re all, “Just kill me already.”
Because while perpetual connection does just that, keeps us connected, it also makes it virtually impossible to escape each other when the wheels come off the relationship wagon.
“but I wonder if all of this transparency is really just making us a generation of damn good liars.”
I would not use such a harsh term as liar but perhaps creative marketer. Living in society requires we disclose some degree of information. But the individual largely retains the power to determine what secrets are disclosed and revealed. Without the ability to keep secrets, individuals lose the capacity to distinguish themselves from others, to maintain independent lives, to be complete and autonomous persons.
This does not mean that a person actually has to keep secrets to be autonomous, just that she or he must possess the ability to do so. The ability to keep secrets implies the ability to disclose secrets selectively, and so the capacity for selective disclosure at one’s own discretion is important to individual autonomy as well. Therefore, secrecy is a form of power and is often used as such in relationships, but is that a good thing? Perhaps completely transparent self-confidence is even more powerful?
I know I find it a very tight balancing act and while I do not care much about Facestalkers I do intentionally and deliberately craft their experience.
Funny enough, I met my wife on MySpace (back in 2004, when it wasn’t all glitter and Facebook was college-only). It honestly seemed weird at the time. Now, it’s as though we’re trailblazers.
(I’m just a nerd, though)
I just let it all out there pretty much up front. I’m shitty when it come to trying to play off something I’m not. That being said, few women can handle the “real” me up front, so I’m working with few numbers. Not really sure the average type anyways…
Great post.
I think I’m doing much of the same. I’m very “um, this is who I am, either get on board or don’t,” but I often wonder what the ramifications are of that. Like, am I going to blog forever? What happens if I stop? etc. etc.
If you stop blogging then it’s a part of your past… whatever makes you up. We’ve all dealt with our pasts in some way or another… regrettable hookups, embarrassing jobs, inconvenient acquaintances. People grow up and people grow past. Not to say that you need to grow up, I think you’re quite grown 😀
There’s something so gorgeously poignant about what you just said. It makes me all, “Yes! Life is fluid! Things change!” and other such statements ending in eleventy thousand exclamation points.
Nice article, and I’ve got some thoughts:
How can a guy “find out more about me than he knows about some of his closest friends” if you’re just being “a creative secret keeper?” You start out by saying that you put too much personal information out there, but then you end by saying you’re not really putting anything out there. Which is it? Do you mean that you worry, by stating things that aren’t really true, that a person can think things about you that are false? Well, the answer then is not to lie on Twitter and Facebook. Or make your Twitter and your Facebook private. There are easy ways to not let this happen, so I don’t know if it’s really that much of a problem.
And as far as when things go badly, that’s what the “hide” feature and the “unfollow” feature is for. A simple click of the mouse and you don’t have to deal with tweets or seeing pictures of your ex anymore.
So really, I don’t see social media making dating difficult at all. It becomes a problem when people let it become one. I
For me, it isn’t a question of honesty vs. dishonesty. Everything I put out in the online space is definitely authentic, and anyone who’s interested can easily find out tons of information about me, but this information doesn’t make up all of who I am. The secret keeping is in reference to the fact that while I’m honest with who I am online, I’m also diligent in choosing not to reveal certain facts, etc. that I don’t think should be for public consumption and I assume that other people operate similarly, which sometimes makes it hard to get to know each other the same way we would if we met offline.
Oh, and your last point is great, that it’s only a problem if we let it become a problem, something that I think is true of so many things.
Amen to this! I hate having to see ex’s with their new girl after things go bad with us. It’s too painful to see and even if you hit the “hide” button on facebook, that stuff still pops up just to make life miserable. :-/
Agreed. I see that type of thing on Facebook and I’m all, “Ew, veto, I quit the internet.” And then stupid Facebook suggests that I reconnect with my ex’s MOM and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m all set actually, but thanks for making me feel like shit.”
This is interesting..the dating playing field as changed big time. I agree with Brain, iPhone apps such as bump has made exchanging numbers as easy as 1,2,3. Making yourself transparent online kind of weeds out the people you know you wouldn’t be interested in and allows you to meet people with similar interests. Do you agree?
I definitely think this is the plus side. I mean, I know for sure that someone who doesn’t like my blog won’t like me in person, so my online presence definitely acts as a filter of sorts, but in relying on that I risk having people think that I’m exactly one way, or only one dimensional, etc.
The flip side is that there’s something about getting to know someone offline, about the fact that communication is so heavily non-verbal, and I think we miss that in our technological wonderland.
I’d have to say that I’m definitely pro-putting it all out there on your FB profile, blog, etc. While there are certainly downsides – particularly if you’re not psycho image conscious and leave up pics of you laying in vom – I think it’s an instant opportunity to be seen as more than you probably were at the outset. Which, with the way things work now, is probably just some sloppy drunk at a bar.
The ability to show off that you can be/are creative is one that doesn’t always get caught in the first couple dates/chats/convos, and it may be your best selling point. I know I’m willing to look past a perceived blemish if I can be instantly guaranteed that you won’t bore the shit out of me down the road.
“I know I’m willing to look past a perceived blemish if I can be instantly guaranteed that you won’t bore the shit out of me down the road.”
Yes, yes, yes. So well said. And it’s snowing here in SF, so we might have to hold off on camping for a bit 🙂
“that little line between glorious information orgy and the complete destruction of personal privacy”
BINGO. It’s a tough fine line, and kudos to the folks that are able to make it work.
I know right?! Like, as if dating isn’t horrendous enough on its own, now we have this fine line to walk. Sigh. Never ending drama.
This article is spot on. I have experienced that where i met someone out one night with a bunch of mutual friends, got her number (we friended on facebook a day or two later), went on a date, and i had no stories to tell that she hadn’t heard yet. She knew my interests, what was on my mind that day, all sorts of stuff. It wasn’t creepy, i put that information out there… and she was interested, so i had that going for me. But i was literally tongue tied as i tried to find something to talk about that night. It was like i had conversation block or something.
Think about new technology that has aided dating. Even iphone apps such as Bump have changed the game a bit.
Man, deciding when to friend them on Facebook is like a whole thing in itself. I’m seeing someone right now who isn’t really that active online, but when he friended me on Facebook I was all, “Okay, well, here goes the stalking…” and then I started doing the thing where I went through my *own* profile, assessing how I’d feel if I had just added me and and and then my head exploded and I decided it’s probably time to buy a cat.
Great post Nicole! This is so true. Now, when you meet someone for the first time, it’s almost as if you don’t need to ask for a phone number, you ask instead for their Facebook (and with mobile phones you can add on the spot as well). Then you go and you look if the other person is interesting based on what you find out. Social networks completely changed the way we date.
It’s funny how one bad post or picture and then it can ruin a relationship. I remember this girl I was dating that couldn’t find anything bad about me on my profile and then went on to add some of my close friends, look up all of their pictures, and finally found a picture of me with an old girlfriend that was taken a long time ago and they were like: who’s that!?!? Now, that’s creepy…
Okay really? The adding your friend thing? That is giving me such massive anxiety. Like, why would someone do that? Where’s the line between “Yay!” and “TOTAL STALKER??”
Nicole, this is so accurate it’s amazing! I like how human experiences are totally shared 😉
And how much more it’s all shared when you’re uber-connected!
This is an interesting topic and a very touchy one. I’m getting married soon so I’m done with the dating game, but here’s my 2 cents…If I were to start dating someone today, in the age of twitter, facebook, blogs, etc., I would work extra hard to ensure that we have a solid face-to-face in-person relationship that is solid enough to withstand a couple online hiccups. IMO, it’s impossible to have a (sustainable) relationship that is based primarily online.
See, yes, this is it exactly. Social networking makes us lazier when it comes to dating, right?