A friend of mine got engaged awhile back and changed her status from “single” to “engaged.” A few weeks later, I saw in my news feed that she had gone from “engaged” to “it’s complicated.” Naturally, I wondered what was up, so I called her. She said that since she was getting so many wedding advertisements she decided to change her status.

I recently ended a serious relationship, and naturally changed my status from “in a relationship” to “single.” I decided not to opt out of posting this to people’s news feeds, partially as an experiment. A couple of my friends responded, which was nice.

I know several people who simply don’t post their relationship status, and I think this will become more common. Not because we don’t trust each other, but because contextual advertising can pour salt in the wound or just be plain annoying.

But how long did people see the heartbreak icon? Who saw it? Who would care that I wouldn’t be able to tell in person anyway. My ex changed her status a few days later and it stung a bit to see. That’s just human nature I suppose. But suddenly the news feed is moving so slowly, it seems her post will never go away. Check out the ad I got on Facebook shortly thereafter:

With my status set to single, I now receive a deluge of ads for dating women 30 and over. I’m all for contextual ads, but when it’s that blatant, it’s a real turn off for me.

In other news, a friend survived a complete Facebook breakup in which his ex de-friended all his friends on Facebook. That’s pretty harsh, especially since I was one of them. But you gotta do what you gotta do to move on, I suppose.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Marketing, Social Media, Web