Scents and Subtle Sounds

Much fuss has been made of the seriousness or frivolty or inadequacy of Facebook relationship status changes.

Commentators ignore, however, other more subtle signs of the intertwining of two people that fall short of status changes. Examples:

1. Wall writing. Writing on someone's Wall is probably the simplest way to publicly flirt. One can even quietly mark one's territory, such as by referring to time spent together ("The show last night was awesome, it was fun hanging out").

2. Friending the Friends. Spending time with someone leads to the inevitable intermixing of social groups in RL. Eventually, you become FB Friends with his/her Friends. This can even lead to friending the boyfriend/girlfriend of the Friends, in addition to writing on the Walls of Friends, often with references to the targeted person that s/he is bound to see.

3. Friending the family. Becoming Friends with siblings is a high indicator of a budding relationship, especially if those siblings live out of town.

4. Status removal. Changing one's status to "In a relationship" and linking to another person requires approval by the other person. As many have noted, going Facebook Official is a big and often intimidating step. A more subtle move is simply removing your status from your profile, so that nothing appears. Facebook needs to work on the News Feed for removal of the field. Currently your Feed will broadcast "Jane D. is no longer listed as single," (with the full heart icon!) when it would more properly read "Jane D. is no longer listing her relationship status." Facebook robs status removal of some of its subtlety, but perhaps it also forces more honesty?

Nevertheless, it should be noted that removing one's status can also be a polite and elegant way of avoiding unwanted advances from other Facebook Friends.