Death by Facebook

I was going out with Tennis Guy for a short period of time. We had gone out on five or six dates and had made it to the level of "friends" on facebook. He was good-looking, had a good career and was a strong Christian who was ready to settle down. We had one major setback going against us: He was "G.U." For those of you who don't know the dating lingo, this stands for Geographically Undesirable. He lived about an hour away, providing there was no traffic.

In some relationships, this can be a good time to tackle that laundry or return phone calls to friends, but it can also limit the little surprise drop-ins when you just need a hug from the new squeeze. So a lot of our daily contact was through Facebook.

My guy friend Jeff would routinely change his status on facebook for EVERYONE to comment on; one day he was "divorced," another he was listed as "it's complicated," and then the next day he was listed as "married." Jeff and I are of a similar sense of humor and joked about how many people loved to freak out over his change in status.

So taking Jeff's lead one day, I decided to change my status to "It's complicated," and "interested in women." I thought this was stinking hilarious. And for anyone who knows me, knows for sure that I was joking. Within minutes of this change, I recieved a text message from Tennis Guy that read "What??? i thought u liked men! Did i change ur mind?" I couldn't contain my laughter. I responded with a quick text that read "well, I was, but the jury's still out on you." I changed my status back to "single" but couldn't help but I giggle all day long thinking how silly I was.

On our next date, Tennis Guy immediately sat me down. His face serious, he proceeded to tell me that he could not be in a relationship with someone who had confusion about their attraction toward the same sex. WHAT???

Flustered, I tried to convince him of my warped sense of humor and explain to him about my buddy Jeff and the whole Facebook inside joke. It came out lamely something like this, "um, my buddy Jeff did it so I did it." I could almost hear my mother in my ear saying "well, if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?" What I did not realize was that this marked the beginning of the end. With him mistrusting my "lifestyle choices" and coupled with the GU issue, our relationship wilted overnight.

Lesson learned: Not everyone has the same sense of humor. Be careful of what you write on Facebook!


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