Are We In A Relationship or WHAT?

I have to laugh; awhile back I got talked into signing up for a Facebook page (although, I wasn't entirely convinced; I signed up with a 'nom de plume') and now it's become a source of discussion between myself and the same person who talked me into it.

When I first signed up, I joked "I'll do this because we need to take our relationship to the next level: the Virtual Level." 

(yes yes, it's a lame joke...)

So anyway, I gamely signed up and made up all sorts of crazy things about myself. However, much to my chagrin, there was no "HMF" status (listen UP Facebook!), so I had to list myself as "In a Relationship" and send him the link.

Can you believe it? He DENIED me!

Seeing as my photo used to contain a very sweet picture him kissing me on the steps of the capitol, I was concerned that the members of my burgeoning online followers might be a bit...confused. (Ok ok, I wanted the validation, too!)

Since we've been together almost five years, we both understand it will take more than his virtual rejection to keep me from hanging around. But still - denied over the internets? That's harsh.

And plus, I'm not the only one who's thinking about this. I've had several conversations with friends who were either in the same boat (or worse, my friend who's "boyfriend" overseas lists his relationship status as "single" !) 

Then, there's the awkwardness of being "friended" by people whom you ran away to the big city to forget in the first place. Do they actually get a notification that you've denied their friendship? Is Val Lindemoen going to pull my hair again in Sunday School if I don't? 

Several news (or news-esque) sites have started talking about this very phenom of the Virtual Rejection.

The Lede (A NY Times blog) writes:

And then, there are all the ways wearing your personal life on your digital sleeve can bedevil you. One of the Facebook members quoted on Canada.com described how the site's "in a relationship/not in a relationship" indication can do that:

"It's turned into this big thing, where if you just start dating someone you have to have this serious discussion: Should we change our Facebook status? Is it too soon? And then, if you break up, you have to change your status again and have that pathetic little broken heart next to your name on the (Facebook news) feed. No, thank you." 

So, I'm slowly coming around to my HMF's thinking. I used to think he was just ashamed to be with me (how's that for jumping to conclusions?) but now I think he's just got more common sense. I'm not worried anyway. Why would I want the virtual relationship, when I've got the real thing?