Ballerific Relationships – Relationships & Social Networks: Privacy vs Secrecy

I’m sure we’ve all witnessed it. You know, you’re browsing your social network timelines and see a woman whose every other post is of her with her man or a photo of him doing something she deems cute… like breathing. It doesn’t matter, she’s head over heels and just wants to post her boo. Her captions are often some witty one liner from a popular hip hop song and her friends comment heart eye and praise hand emojis followed by ‘fave couple!’. She tags him but he never comments and out of curiosity you end up on his page only to find very little traces of her. That is, except the one photo of her that’s captioned “shout out to the lil homie”. Er?

While I am completely understanding of privacy in relationships, especially when it comes to social networks, there is a fine line between privacy and secrecy. Privacy says “I am with this person and that’s all you need to know” and secrecy may say “A select few know we are together but I’m not admitting it publicly because that can ruin my options”. Of course, it depends on the person and their character but if the that line between privacy and secrecy is blurred something is probably up. One can argue that it’s ‘just a social network’ but people share photos of everything from their favorite food, degrees/diploma and even child birth. We do use these platforms to showcase things that matter to us even if we think it wouldn’t mean much to the people watching. Posting a simple photo or stating your relationship status is not telling your business. In what world? It is very much possible to acknowledge your mate and your relationship without revealing the details of your union. No, every post doesn’t have to be dedicated to them with a corny Love poem attached but some people just like to know that you are proud to have them and want to show them off to the people you share your cyber world with. I don’t care how old you are, we are wired to want to belong and it feels damn good when the people we Love not only Love us back but want to shout it from the rooftops and put their claim on it.

Does it matter if your significant other acknowledges you publicly or makes their status known? Would it bother you if they never mentioned you at all or is it ‘just a social network’?