Facebook

[redbird]

I noted earlier today that I wasn't on Facebook, and when I was done with my nap I had an IM saying Jae had invited me to sign up.

It offered to add IM buddies, and I added a few but am not inviting people to join unless they ask; I will probably add a few more people, though I'm not at all sure at this point what it's for or what I'm going to use it for. As I noted in a comment to a friend, I don't think their software can handle my relationship status, and somehow I mind giving a misleading though true statement there more than I do when filling out a Zogby poll.

Comments

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Check out the Facebook app "Relationships Plus". (You can find it in my profile.) It covers those of us with more complicated relationships, although it shows further down in your profile than the "official" one.

[redbird]

I can't seem to find it. (Given that two of my partners would probably rather I not mention their real names there, and none of them are on Facebook, it may not matter.)

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

I sent you a friend request over there.

I admit, I like the "real person" aspect of the whole thing. Also, a bunch of grad school folks all jumped on board at the same time...

[redbird]

And I've added you. One of these days we'll find time for lunch or something, I hope.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, one of their relationship options is "It's complicated," which I quite liked.

[fuzzygabby.livejournal.com]

That's the one I went with.

[redbird]

I suppose I could note that mine isn't complicated, just unusual, but I guess that depends on what you mean by "complicated." The other thing is that a friend mentioned (elsewhere on LJ, in comments to someone else's locked post) that when zie picked "it's complicated" people interpreted that as meaning zie was in a relationship but not prepared to declare it to be a relationship and/or not prepared to declare it publicly

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I don't see why "complicated" should imply "difficult" or "ugly." I thought it just meant, "My relationship status cannot be described adequately in this space: ask me if you really want to know about it." (Consider that "this space" is not the comment space on LJ, which lets a person go on for paragraphs, but maybe 20 characters.)

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

That's more or less what I took "it's complicated" to mean—my relationship status is not complicated in the sense of snarly bits all entangled and requiring extensive narrative to fully explain, but it's not easily outlined in a small space and does require some narrative, especially if it falls outside your [the reader's] experience.

[bschilli.livejournal.com]

Don't they have a "None of your business" option?

Ben

[maryread.livejournal.com]

The text windows are very small. I think it is more purely social networking, less text-based, than LJ, given all the highly organized play activities there. I think it is in just the last couple weeks that fanzine fandom as we know it has moved in there as such -- Whumph had a very funny comment somewhere that his people had invaded.

Meanwhile, Number One Son is a bit appalled I think that they're letting all the rest of us in, not in colleges, besides the MySpace riffraff, but I leave him to lurk around and don't bother his thing where all his high school and college acquaintances stay in contact. Very useful at that social stage when everyone splits the hometown for different parts of the country (assuming they want to stay in touch) and pseudonyms would be less helpful.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

If you simply don't answer the question, it doesn't show up on your profile.

[redbird]

A person can certainly leave that question unanswered; there's no default answer (that is, if you leave it blank it doesn't decide that you're single, or married, or what-have-you).