Fifty First (J) Dates: I Facebooked Your Mom Last Night

Upon viewing The Social Network this weekend, I had a lot of unanswered questions: Does Mark Zuckerberg have a cognitive and social disorder? (Were they trying to make it seem like he was autistic or something?) Do all Harvard boys date Asian girls? Would you really try to light your boyfriend’s room on fire? And who wears flip-flops in the snow? Are the Winklevoss twins available for a calendar spread in my bedroom in their skivvies? (Turns out its just one guy. Dear Armie Hammer – your presence in my room is needed. Urgently. It’s about the Harvard Connection.)

The movie on the whole was pretty good, for a movie about the Internets and nerdz.  Justin Timberlake didn’t suck so badly, after all. I was annoyed with the portrayal of women in the film (as was The Daily Beast, Jezebel, shockingly, etc). The female characters were either dumb or sluts, or dumb sluts. Thanks, Sorkin.

The movie did bring up a very FFJD concept – the role of Facebook in relationships and dating. As Zuckerberg says in the movie, the final piece of the Facebook puzzle was “relationship status” and “interested in.” Saverin’s crazy girlfriend screams at him that it says “single” on his profile. Etcetera. Facebook plays a huge role in dating, from start to finish.

Let’s see how that plays out.

Step 1. Friending.

You meet a cute boy at a bar. Your JDate gives you his full name. You are at a raging pregame covered in cupcakes and gummie bears and you hit if off with Jordan from Great Neck who went to Indiana and he’s cute and nice but you really want the nitty gritty like who he took to senior formal and whether or not he has a hotter sibling. So you look him up on the Book of Face.

Should you friend him? Do you friend him? What if it seems like you’re too into him and then you decide that you should tooootes wait for him to make the first move (after gchatting five of your best friends and asking their advice…four said no and Gretchen, the floozy, said to go ahead and do it.)

When is he going to accept it? Will he wait too long? What if he wants to wait a few days before accepting and make you feel stupid for even doing it in the first place?

Dilemma. You are slightly inebriated after having a few glasses of wine and singing along to Glee in your doughnut-print jammy pants, so you go for it.

Step 2. Mutual Friends/Scouring Photos from As Far Back As They Go.

Jordan accepted within a day. Gretchen was right, you totally should have done it.

So now comes the scouring.

You have three mutual friends (one was a boy from TEP you used to suck face with every once and again, one is a bitch from high school who you hate because she thinks she’s soooo cool just because she goes to Columbia and is dating a med student, and the third is some random dude who was in your PoliSci class and now randomly texts you to hang out.)

Will you let this impact your thoughts on Jordan? Will Jordan think differently of you? You better let him know that Sara’s doctor boyfriend isn’t even a doctor, but a first year med student. And that she sucks.

What’s Jordan’s relationship status? (I once agonized repeatedly over a guy I had a major crush on because his status said in a relationship, but I didn’t think he was, but he might have been, and well, to this day I still don’t know.)

Does he have pictures with any girls? (Don’t lie, you’ve totally stalked your hookups ex girlfriends. To a degree that is uncomfortable, because you know the names of their friends from high school. Or at least for one person I did. Oops.)

3. Tag It!

You and Jordan have hooked up a few times, he even took you out to dinner once. You’ve met some of his friends – they walk the line between cool and douchey on a regular basis, but you think you’ve won them over with an extensive debate on why Biggie Smalls is superior to any other rapper and that you’re totally down with threesomes. Someone snaps a picture of you at Kelsey’s pregame.

Do you post it? Does this mean your’e official? Are you tagged in a photo together? What are people going to say? It’s not from your good side but you want to stake your territory anyway.

6. The Facebook Relationship.

Things are going pretty well, you’re familiar with Jordan’s Scarface poster and Ciroc collection on a nearly daily basis.

It’s not official until ZOMG you’re in a FACEBOOK RELATIONSHIP. (My parents are married on Facebook. this makes a small piece of me die every day.)

You fantasize about the day when you and Mark are linked in eternity on the site, and its splashed across everyone’s news feed. You wonder how many thumbs up you’re going to get.

The new trend – engagement notifications via Facebook. I guess it’s a mass way of letting everyone know that the Aepi boy you’ve been dating since Sophomore year decided to put a ring on it. And you better add a picture, because we could be as happy for you as clams and barnacles, but we really just want to see the rock.

7. Subsequent breakup.

Mark, Jordan’s friend from a summer ibanking internship, posted a picture of him and his friends at a Mets game on the night he said that he was sick and at home watching reruns of the Office. What a dick.

“Sara changed her relationship status to single.”

You detag pictures of yourself together, and in some instances you might even DEFRIEND him (this is intense, although I did once have a boy block me entirely, mostly because he was unstable.)

You quickly decide this is too dramatic, and you want him to be able to see pictures of you having sooooo much fun in skimpy outfits with your friends that scream “I don’t need you and your pathetic collection of bongs.”

Now you’re at some happy hour for People Who Wear Ugly Pantsuits and you’re downing Skinny Girl margaritas when you meet Jeff, a paralegal with an affinity for cute driving loafers and a smile that says: lets blow this popsicle stand and go to Southside or my apartment on 30th and 1st.

Hmm, maybe you have mutual friends on Facebook…

And around we go. Just be careful not to poke Jeff instead of friend him. That’ll ruin your entire game. Just wait until Jordan sees pictures of you guys sucking face in his Mets seats.

Got a great dating story? email it to fiftyfirstjdates@gmail.com

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