Interested in:
On my facebook profile, right at the top you will see the following information:
Networks: Waterloo '10
Sex: Female
Interested in: Men
Birthday: May 6
Hometown: <hometown>
You will not see my relationship status. Though it was definitely a conscious choice not to share that information, it's sort of hard to explain why. In three points:
- I guess I just don't think that whether or not I'm single is a big defining point of who I am.
- Or maybe because there are so many blurry lines between single and not single (though who am I kidding: I'm usually as single as they come. No blurry lines there!) that I don't feel like defining every my every interaction with males.
- Maybe if one day they let me link to other important people in that spot, too. You know? I'd rather link to sisters or best friends or favourite ex-roommates or lab partners or cousins or improv partners or best freaders than any hypothetical boyfriend because those are people that matter more and get higher priority anyway.
Reasons why I feel like I should share which sex I'm interested in:
- Somebody told me if you didn't, that people would think you're a lesbian
- That's pretty offensive if you think about it for even 5 seconds. It implies that I think being thought a lesbian is undesirable. Right? Like it always bothers me when movie stars are asked if they're gay and they're like "OH GOD NO! But... I have no problems with the gay community". You know? Like if on my resume I wrote "NOTE: I AM WHITE" wouldn't that be racist? Because it would imply that I think being white is a favourable characteristic? Is that a fair parallel?
Oh, except now is it going to show up in my mini feed, "Lisa is no longer listed as being interested in men." Great. Actually, is that a big deal? Oh, decisions. Stephanie recently loaned me the book Cunt and I'm about a third of the way through. It's great. I feel like this is the right thing to do. Okay. Profile edited. (I just live blogged a profile edit?)
This has been a weird post.
19 comments:
wow, facebook is still around. Im so old sometimes
I don't have my relationship status or "interested in" filled out on my profile. I'm not on Facebook to find a man, so it seems weird to fill that out. It's not match.com. If you change your profile, you can immediately go and delete that comment from your mini feed so noone will know you changed it.
wow, you gave those section about 400 times more thought than I did. Maybe you should pace yourself with the feminine lit, skins!
feminist lit, that is. Although I suppose Cunt would be feminine literature as well.
i've never had "interested in" filled out because I figure anyone who is my facebook friend already knows who I am interested in. Kind of redundant. (Except I am sure many old friend's of mine suspected I was in a relationship with my roommate who appears in 90% of my facebook pictures)
I think people over think this far too much. I say fill in what you want and be done with it. I think it takes guts to have "single - looking for a relationship" than it does to leave it blank. So even though I maybe laugh at people for doing that, at least they are being honest.
Lise! So glad you are enjoying it - or at least reading it! Love to hear your thoughts when you return from the big city.
And as far as "interested in" goes - although I identify as being straight - I think the world would possibly be a lot healthier if people just loved people - and we could get past this whole business of having to label everyone according to who they interact romantically or sexually with. But then I know there is that business of reproducing - so it obviously gets complicated...
However, I do not think it is an affront to lesbians to state that you are "interested in men" as it is normal to not want people to make assumptions about you that are false, whether or not you would see these as "good" or "bad" assumptions. In the same way, although it is probably quite obvious, you also state you are female. Not because you think its bad to be male, but simply because you want people to know what you actually are.
Wow. And now you know all my opinions on this topic.
Also I think Laura makes a good point about people being honest in this category.
put interested in both. cause a conversation!
"Lisa is no longer interested in men"
What an AWESOME thing to have pop up on the newsfeed!
I took down my "Interested In" not too long ago, because it was just annoying and it didn't hold any meaning. I do have a Relationship Status listed, but I don't think it matters either way. I'd take it down...
I don't say interested in, because for one thing that's complicated, and for another thing I'm interested in everyone in a non-romantic way, and for a third thing I would rather people who are going to make assumptions do so based on information they make up in their heads than based on information that I hand them.
Ha! I wrote about Facebook today, too. I've never had this issue because I've been dating AS since before my FB days began, but in PAST social networking sites, I always found the "interested in" field pretty annoying.
I have nothing in my "interested in." I mean, of course I am interested in Friends and Networking, but I'm not on FB for either of those things!
I haven't made a change in that portion of my profile since I signed up in Feb '06, but I never listed anything under 'interested in' simply because I wasn't interested in anybody but the individual I was 'in a relationship' with. note: I also didn't link him, mainly because that's just TMI in my opinion.
You must also consider how both our generation and facebook have changed... originally we were first-years interested in knowing everyone's business without even asking. Oh, and facebook was exclusively for college-aged socialization ie dating and keg partiez!
Wow. I haven't given that any thought in a while.
This is why my relationship status presently states that I am married to my BFF. It confuses all my high school friends into thinking I'm a married lesbian when in fact I am neither married, nor a lesbian.
SO THERE.
i hate how the minifeed phrases things! "lisa is no longer interested in men"???
funny sounding, but annoying at the same time!!
Yo, an honor to be referred to as a fav feminist.
I don't mind answering questions when I can be playful. I generally avoid menu boxes that try to distill my personality into narrow categories for marketing data.
"Interested in" is a funny Victorian euphemism for sexual desire. I also enjoy that it implies that one gender is interesting and everything else is borington street.
I all but stopped using facebook. I totally lost interest when they introduced all of those stupid applications awhile ago. Now it's all blogging for me..:-)
something else about facebook that makes me mad is that i can't say I'm interested in men and women. I mean, I'm interested in meeting both. I'm interested in talking to both. I'm just not interested in dating both. But Facebook makes me be all like "I'M JUST INTERESTED IN MEN AND NOT INTERESTED IN HAVING WOMEN FRIENDS"
Maybe I need to calm down? I need to calm down.
my most annoying facebook moment ... when i decided to remove my relationship status and got a flurry of "congrats on the new man" messages on my wall ... because the stupid update page said that "michelle is no longer listed as single". for 2 days, my status read "michelle is still single, but thinks it's none of your business that she is."
so i'm slowly but surely playing catch up in greader and i have to say this post is CLASSIC. so freaking true and i nearly spit out my tea while attempting not to laugh out loud.
and what is with this TX thing? fill a girl in?
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