We have all seen it, and if you have very many friends on Facebook, it might be something you see on a weekly basis. One friend is single. Another one is in a relationship. Then, there is that one who is complicated. Sometimes, you may watch your friends go from single, to attached, back to single and then attached again in a short amount of time. The Facebook relationship status has become like the gossip mill of the high school lunch room.
Honestly, whether or not you choose to let all of your friends know about your relationship status is a personal preference. You may wish to announce to everyone that your divorce finally went through, and if you do, then Facebook can be the perfect forum for that. However, if you do not wish for the world to know what is going on in that part of your personal life, the good news is that there are three different ways that you can control it. You can choose one or more than one of these options, but no matter how you set it up, it will be up to you if your friends know about your complicated relationships.
Facebook “Relationship Privacy” TIP:
When you change your relationship status, it comes up on the news feed of all your friends and your own wall. You do not have to leave it this way, though. You can visit the privacy settings page and look for the part that controls what shows up in your news feed. Then you can uncheck the box for relationship status.
If it is already showing up in the news feed, then a simple, one time solution is to go to your wall and then click the “x” to the right. This will immediately remove the relationship status change from everyone’s news feed.
Those two issues control the relationship status change.
What if you do not want anyone knowing even what your relationship status is at all? There is a solution for this too. When you go to your profile settings page and you visit the section called “basic information” you can check the box to remove relationship status. This way, when people visit your profile they will not be able to see this about you.
In Facebook-land, the relationship status is a little like high school drama. It can be a vehicle for gossip, and it can also be a vehicle to get unwanted attention. If you want, you can take this little setting completely off to save yourself from the aggravation.
