Not Your Mother's Rules: The New Secrets for Dating by Ellen Fein, Sherrie Schneider
Authors: Ellen Fein, Sherrie Schneider
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by Wednesday for Saturday night or three days in advance for a weeknight date.
• Be cautious regarding your relationship status. If you are not dating anyone, don’t list your relationship status as single—it’s no one’s business. Why advertise it? Delete the relationship listing option. It is better to leave your status out altogether because you don’t want to show that much interest in the whole subject of relationships. Also, if your status changes from “in a relationship” to“single,” your hundreds of friends will be notified and you might be embarrassed.
If you are dating someone, don’t post “in a relationship” before he does or make your main photo one of the two of you before he does. We don’t think you should post “in a relationship” at all, unless he brings it up or insists that you do. If you initiate either of these things, it might look like you care too much. It could also bring out all the mean girls who want to sabotage your relationship. His ex-girlfriend(s) might see that he is happy with you and try to ruin it by writing on his wall or tagging him in photos. All these things can be avoided by retaining an air of mystery no matter what. But if it’s too much for you, then deactivate your profile. Facebook doesn’t define you.
• Don’t friend his friends and family first. Facebook and other social networking sites have made access to everyone he knows all too easy. Don’t use these sites as an excuse to waltz into his world. (We will elaborate on this in “Don’t Introduce a Guy to Anyone First,” in
Rule #17
.) It’s aggressive and might scare a guy away! It might freak
them
out too and give them too much information about you! It’s like inviting yourself to the family picnic or his sister’s wedding. His friends and family should be friending you!
• De-friend and/or block an ex if he ended the relationship, depending on how badly it ended. If seeing your ex-boyfriend online or having any contact with him at all is too painful for you, then block him to protect yourself. Some guys want to stay friends on Facebook, but we are not fans of keeping a connection with a guywho broke your heart, because it’s too painful, gives you false hope, and wastes your time when you should be moving on. Blocking him will prevent you from seeing his activities on your news feed if you still have mutual friends on Facebook, and will prevent you from seeing his photos (possibly with another woman) and any other information that he leaves open to the public that might upset you. If the relationship ended badly, he might put things on his page to upset you or make his default photo one with a girl there was drama about, which will also be hurtful. To avoid seeing all that, just block him. You might also want to untag any photos of the two of you.
Try to resist the urge to sneak peeks on his page through mutual friends. Of course, you’re only human and will be curious to know what he’s up to, but you will only feel worse if you go on his page—kind of like Googling celebrity websites when you are in sweats with no makeup on and downing a pint of Häagen Dazs. Who needs that? Do you really need to see that he went boating with a pretty blonde a week after you split up on your birthday? We think not. Blocking is the essence of Next! With Facebook everyone has now become like a celebrity with public breakups—and the pain and humiliation of everyone seeing your relationship drama played out like on the cover of a magazine.
Some might argue that blocking shows too much anger or resentment, but our feeling is that it’s better to get an ex out of your life than to worry about what he and other people think. But if
you
broke up with him and are okay staying friends on Facebook, that’s fine with us.
Amy, thirty-one, who broke so many
Rules
with her boyfriend that he dumped her, contacted us for advice about Facebook. We told her to de-friend and block her ex immediately so that
• Be cautious regarding your relationship status. If you are not dating anyone, don’t list your relationship status as single—it’s no one’s business. Why advertise it? Delete the relationship listing option. It is better to leave your status out altogether because you don’t want to show that much interest in the whole subject of relationships. Also, if your status changes from “in a relationship” to“single,” your hundreds of friends will be notified and you might be embarrassed.
If you are dating someone, don’t post “in a relationship” before he does or make your main photo one of the two of you before he does. We don’t think you should post “in a relationship” at all, unless he brings it up or insists that you do. If you initiate either of these things, it might look like you care too much. It could also bring out all the mean girls who want to sabotage your relationship. His ex-girlfriend(s) might see that he is happy with you and try to ruin it by writing on his wall or tagging him in photos. All these things can be avoided by retaining an air of mystery no matter what. But if it’s too much for you, then deactivate your profile. Facebook doesn’t define you.
• Don’t friend his friends and family first. Facebook and other social networking sites have made access to everyone he knows all too easy. Don’t use these sites as an excuse to waltz into his world. (We will elaborate on this in “Don’t Introduce a Guy to Anyone First,” in
Rule #17
.) It’s aggressive and might scare a guy away! It might freak
them
out too and give them too much information about you! It’s like inviting yourself to the family picnic or his sister’s wedding. His friends and family should be friending you!
• De-friend and/or block an ex if he ended the relationship, depending on how badly it ended. If seeing your ex-boyfriend online or having any contact with him at all is too painful for you, then block him to protect yourself. Some guys want to stay friends on Facebook, but we are not fans of keeping a connection with a guywho broke your heart, because it’s too painful, gives you false hope, and wastes your time when you should be moving on. Blocking him will prevent you from seeing his activities on your news feed if you still have mutual friends on Facebook, and will prevent you from seeing his photos (possibly with another woman) and any other information that he leaves open to the public that might upset you. If the relationship ended badly, he might put things on his page to upset you or make his default photo one with a girl there was drama about, which will also be hurtful. To avoid seeing all that, just block him. You might also want to untag any photos of the two of you.
Try to resist the urge to sneak peeks on his page through mutual friends. Of course, you’re only human and will be curious to know what he’s up to, but you will only feel worse if you go on his page—kind of like Googling celebrity websites when you are in sweats with no makeup on and downing a pint of Häagen Dazs. Who needs that? Do you really need to see that he went boating with a pretty blonde a week after you split up on your birthday? We think not. Blocking is the essence of Next! With Facebook everyone has now become like a celebrity with public breakups—and the pain and humiliation of everyone seeing your relationship drama played out like on the cover of a magazine.
Some might argue that blocking shows too much anger or resentment, but our feeling is that it’s better to get an ex out of your life than to worry about what he and other people think. But if
you
broke up with him and are okay staying friends on Facebook, that’s fine with us.
Amy, thirty-one, who broke so many
Rules
with her boyfriend that he dumped her, contacted us for advice about Facebook. We told her to de-friend and block her ex immediately so that
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