5 Ways Facebook Complicates Our Dating and Social Lives

Analysis Paralysis

Freely available information or slander concerning your current partner, your ex-partner or even a prospective love interest can simply be too much to handle! Including your partner in your Facebook dialogue and friends list is a recipe for disaster. Things have a nasty way of being taken out of context on Facebook. For example, you might happen to come across a photo of some girl who has been tagged in a photo up close and flirty with the guy you’re dating. It might be totally innocent, yet a state of anxiety and panic starts to set in regardless.        

Rumor Mill

Part of the Facebook functionality allows people on your friends list to speculate about your relationship and dating status. Regardless of how you choose to set your relationship status, your friends have the ability to post all kinds of pictures of you that could easily raise speculation about your single status - a picture says a thousand words.

Humiliation

Dating is awkward enough at the best of times. Facebook makes dating even worse. Many guys won't hesitate in firing off a compulsive introduction email to a girl he doesn't know that's on his friends list. Even if she doesn't reply, he may go a step further and write on her wall, so EVERYONE can see how desperate his is. And if this girl has somehow ended up on his friends list, there's a chance they'll cross paths in real life through mutual friends making his efforts not only embarrassing, as well as a public spectacle both on and offline.

Unwanted Facebook Stalkers

Meaning: Lonely men + Facebook = Stalkers. Most stalkers go away after a few failed attempts to engage their admirer. But like anything in life, there's always a bad apple no matter where you go, it comes down to the law of averages. However, Facebook does allow people to minimize their exposure to unwanted communications via their profile settings, unfortunately, few people make use of this option. You can limit access to your Facebook account by limiting access to your wall and other photo or status updates.

Facebook Crush

Rather than providing you with loads of dating options on Facebook, the guy or girl you have a crush on tends to keep giving you more questions rather than answers in terms of their relationship status. "Why doesn't he/she set their relationship status, they must be a player." Or "I wonder who that girl is that seems to be in lots of his photo's, sister? cousin? lover?"     

Seemingly, Facebook looks like an enormous smorgas board of single people. But of you speak to people who use Facebook as a means for finding dating opportunities, the facade doesn't always live up to the truth.

What Facebook does offer though, are sophisticated online dating apps for single people. And it's through these apps that are connecting millions of single guys and girls who have downloaded the same app. These dating applications tap into the Facebook network thus pairing people up based on compatibility thanks to their Facebook information.

Facebook is an extremely powerful social tool, but it is wise to know the best ways in which to utilize the massive reach it provides.

Matt Fuller

About the Author

Matt offers advice relating to singles dating sites, social networking platforms, and free online dating sites reviews.

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattdating101

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