I was surprised Sunday morning to see a relationship status change for Alicia, my friend and former girlfriend. (I've told you about her before. She exists! And not in Canada either.) Facebook was telling me that she was engaged. To some guy whose name I didn't recognize. I didn't recognize his FB avatar, either. About one minute of Good for her! thoughts (and a quickly-deleted vague tweet on Twitter) followed before I started thinking about how I definitely didn't have enough information. And also something I'd never thought of before: Can someone else unilaterally change your relationship status?
I went to Alicia's FB page and another message that showed up on it, because she'd been tagged on it, was the guy saying (paraphrased) Sorry, didn't mean to make anyone think Alicia and I were married. (Me: Whaaaaaat?!) But we are engaged! There was more, but still not illuminating. A phone call later did the illuminating instead:
NO. Alicia ain't engaged, and she doesn't plan to get engaged. The guy is an online friend of hers one state over (and I already know her lack of enthusiasm for LDRs), and the guy got, um, overzealous. Oh, and he also lied.
"I'll deal with that," Alicia told me.
There. Status: quo. And if you see my relationship status change, trust me, I'll be telling you about it, much more than just Facebook showing that little heart next to my name.
Edit: I'll add that Alicia is habitually very guarded online. (Short story: a lot of guys suck.) Her FB avatar is of her cat. Even if she fell for someone and got engaged/married to him, she probably wouldn't mention it there.