Out of my demographic on Facebook

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Out of my demographic on Facebook

Out of my demographic on Facebook

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26 February, 2007
4 comments
by Alexandra Samuel

I finally (!) joined Facebook, but here's as key sign it's not exactly my demographic: there's no way to define your relationship to someone as "married". When Rob added me as a friend, I had the option of describing our relationship as "lived together", "family" (if I wanted to describe him as a sibling or cousin -- but no, it's not that kind of marriage!) or "dated". I chose "dated", and had the opportunity to further clarify that we were "practically married" and are "still together". Now all I have to worry about are all the ladies cruising Facebook to find the kind of guy who is commitment-ready, but not legally committed....

Comments

Mark Bell says

February 26, 2007 - 1:18pm

Under relationship status you can choose:

Single
In a relationship
In an open relationship
Engaged
Married
It's complicated

Am I missing something?

Rob Cottingham says

February 26, 2007 - 2:28pm

Okay, I see how you do it... but it's pretty counterintuitive.

You don't edit the entry for your friend; you edit your own profile. (This, after five minutes of hunting on my part.) You'll see a "relationship" menu, where you choose "Married", and then enter the name of your spouse. Facebook then searches for users with that name, and you select the correct one.

Why you can't do that from the friend's profile instead baffles me.

Thanks for the tip, Mark. (By the way, Mark has a really interesting slideshow on Second Life and identity – worth checking out.)

Phillip Jeffrey says

February 27, 2007 - 1:01pm

Congrats on joining Facebook. One of the coolest features is the notification you get when one of your friend's birthday is upcoming. It is also fun to 'poke' friends.

Jennifer Robbins says

March 21, 2007 - 2:01pm

YES!! I agree. I am totally hooked on Facebook. You must have ref'd it in your Web 2.0 seminar as a co-worker who attended poked me and I remembered I'd joined ages ago. Anyway I found it difficult to add my Mr. too. And even now that we are "Married", when I visit his profile, it says "Bill is your spouse. You dated." Yes. We dated. You could call it that. Another sign it's not my demographic is that there's over 500 members at my high schools, but I gave up after trying from my grad class ('94) up until '98. Looks like mostly class of '10. Whaaaaa?!

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