FriendCrib Mag
It's Complicated: Changing Your Facebook Relationship Status
On Facebook, a couple wasn't official until the relationship status said so. Changing it showed up in every friend's News Feed, breakups included.
Written by Daniel Rivera · 56k: ~2 min
Facebook's relationship status was a line on your profile that told everyone where you stood: single, in a relationship, engaged, married or, famously, "it's complicated." It was one of the site's earliest features, from the days when Facebook was mostly for college students. When you changed it, the update showed up in your friends' News Feeds, so a new couple or a breakup became public news in seconds. By the late 2000s, people had a name for the moment a relationship went public. They called it Facebook official.
The options
The basic list started simple: Single, In a Relationship, Engaged, Married and It's Complicated. "In an Open Relationship" was there too, which raised a lot of eyebrows. Over time Facebook added Widowed, Separated and Divorced. In February 2011, it added In a Civil Union and In a Domestic Partnership, so gay and lesbian couples in places without same-sex marriage could list their real status.
If you picked In a Relationship, you could link your partner's profile. They had to confirm it, and once they did, both of your profiles pointed to each other. That link was what everyone was really after, and the waiting was awful. You refreshed the page like it owed you money.
What does Facebook official mean?
Facebook official means a couple has set their relationship status to "In a Relationship" and linked to each other's profiles, so everyone can see it. As early as 2005, Urban Dictionary described being Facebook official as the ultimate sign of a college relationship. The saying "It's not official until it's Facebook official" was everywhere by 2010.
It turned into a milestone of its own. Couples talked about whether they were ready. Friends asked "so are you Facebook official yet?" the same way older generations asked if someone was going steady. Some couples went official after a few weeks. Others never did, which led to its own conversations.
The idea has a long history. In the 1950s, college couples in the US sometimes announced serious relationships in campus newspapers. Facebook made it faster and put it next to your photo. MySpace had already given people a smaller version of the same pressure, when you had to decide who got a spot in your Top 8.
It's complicated
"It's complicated" may be the most famous phrase Facebook ever put in a menu. It meant whatever you wanted it to mean. You might be seeing someone without having decided what it was, or you'd broken up and gotten back together twice this month. Some people just liked the drama.
The phrase showed up on Urban Dictionary in 2007 and soon moved off the site into everyday speech. People said "it's complicated" about jobs, friendships and their feelings about pizza.
How Facebook relationship statuses became public, and what the data said about breakups. Watch on YouTube
The breakup in your News Feed
News Feed made it worse. After Facebook launched News Feed in 2006, changes to your profile could show up for all your friends at once. A breakup didn't stay private for long. Changing your status to Single sent a little announcement out to everyone, and the comments started almost instantly.
Some people hid the change by removing their status entirely instead of switching to Single. Others changed it on purpose so everyone would know. Someone always noticed anyway. There was usually one friend who saw every status change first and texted the group about it.
When the Wall was still the main way to talk on the site, people sometimes left supportive or nosy messages right there in public. You can read about that in writing on someone's Facebook Wall.
Status etiquette
There were unwritten rules here too. You didn't go Facebook official without talking about it first, because a surprise relationship request could start an argument on its own. If you broke up, the person who changed their status first had made a statement, whether they meant to or not. And if your ex changed theirs to In a Relationship a week later, every mutual friend saw it.
Friends' reactions were part of it. A new relationship got a pile of comments and, later, likes. A breakup got sad faces, private messages and the occasional friend who wrote "call me" in public. Some people turned off status updates in the feed entirely so they could change things without an audience. It rarely worked as well as they hoped.
Before the status existed, people had to be more roundabout. You waited to see who was online, put up an away message and hoped the right person got the hint. Facebook cut out the hinting.
When do people break up?
In 2010, British designer David McCandless and a colleague searched 10,000 Facebook status updates for the words "breakup" and "broken up" and charted when they happened. The results were famous. Breakups peaked in the weeks before spring break and about two weeks before Christmas. Mondays were the most common day. Christmas Day was the least likely day of the whole year.
He showed the chart in a TED talk, and it got passed around for years. Seeing your own life on a chart felt strange, especially if you remembered the Monday you changed your status.
Is the relationship status still on Facebook?
Yes, the relationship status is still on Facebook, though far fewer people use it. Over the years, Facebook added ways to soften breakups, like taking a break from seeing an ex's posts without unfriending them. Many younger users stopped listing a status at all, and a reader poll by BuzzFeed found that 40 percent of people in their twenties wouldn't list one.
Private messaging and other apps changed things too. Couples announced themselves with photos instead of a profile setting. Being Facebook official got a little old-fashioned, which is why people still joke about it. If you want another Facebook mystery, try the poke button.
Things people remember
- Waiting for your partner to confirm the relationship request
- Seeing a breakup in your News Feed before your friend told you
- Changing your status to "It's complicated" just to start a conversation
- Couples who listed each other as married as a joke
- The awkward month before going official
- Hiding the status completely during a rough patch
So, did you ever make it official?
Your crib, your call
FriendCrib doesn't make your love life a headline. You can put what you want in your About Me and leave the rest out. The old-school way to show interest was smaller than a status, like the feeling of your crush signing on. Make a crib and decide what's official for yourself.
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