OK we didn’t exactly get engaged on Facebook!
I proposed to my girlfriend on top of a hill on Dartmoor on Sunday and thankfully she said yes!
After the rounds of phone calls and visits to close family and friends, we decided against using the text message to spread our good news, but giggled like kids as we updated and confirmed our FB statuses from “In A Relationship” to “Engaged”.
The response has been awesome. Friends and not-so-friends-more-colleagues have been commenting, poking and writing on our walls with such lovely messages of congratulations and joy that I’ve started taking screenshots and printing them off for posterity!
How mad is that?!
It just demonstrates social-networking’s reach and variety of touch-points. Some folks saw my status update, some the photos and some saw others commenting and dived in to see what the fuss was all about.
We thought about an announcement in The Times but what’s the point? Much cooler to do it online and hit the folks we know and don’t know so well.
Not all the changes in circumstances of people I know on FB have been so happy though.
I know of one friend who lives in New Zealand and eagerly told her social world of plans to get married, posting pictures of the day on the site and the ensuing and very passionate honeymoon. A few months later her status changed very suddenly to "single" and she warned the her female followers never to take back a cheater as they never change!
Ooooops!
Another friend from years back has just run off and left her husband taking the kids with her. For weeks her “wall” was daubed with messages from friends and family asking where she was and pleading her to call them. She’s now firmly ensconced with some new bloke and has almost disowned her past, freely blogging about her old life with damning references to her old friends.
Very, very sad!
So seeing as we’re said to be so British and reserved, what is it about this new outlet that allows us to so eagerly flaunt our innermost thoughts and private joys and jousts?
Do we see in social-networking the same steam-letting afforded by our culture of binge-drinking....but without the expense or hangover?
Or have we always been into being gossip as well as listening to it?
All I know is I have a wedding to plan in the middle of a recession........anyone know where my nearest Woolworths is?
