Update on my bf and Facebook problem

[underthewater]

Kind of really frustrated now...sigh! I just wrote a private message to a member here who helped me before how my bf and I were ok now, and then I found out he still hadn't added me on Facebook.

I didn't use FB a lot, according to him he used it only to browse other people's profiles. We were not friends on Facebook since I didn't find it necessary. He went to Hong Kong at the end of last month and before he left, I asked him if we should become friends and add that "in a relationship with XXX" thing on. He said he had all kind of people on his facebook, and he didn't want to reveal his personal life to all those people and get all kind of comments. I thought it's just fine (I still think so) since I didn't use it that much anyways. But he said that I could just add him there so I'd know what he's doing there.

I did it one week ago, leaving a pretty cheeky message. He said he'd add me once he logged in. I knew he didn't use it much so it's fine for me. Then a few days earlier I found out a girl on his FB was his ex and a couple of others were her friends, he said they're not in contact for years and couldn't even recall her friends. I don't doubt it. He said he'd delete them if I preferred it that way, and I said ok. Both of us were a bit moody during this process but no big arguement and I thought we're perfectly fine this weekend as we talked and video chatted.

Then just now I found out that he still hadn't confirmed my request but he had two more new friends...and his ex and his ex's friends are still there. Well the deleting his ex thing doesn't really matter to me (if he wants to do something, he can always email or call), but I just don't get why he doesn't add me. Not that I care if we are "friends" on FB, what really concerns is whether he thinks that I'm that kind of girlfriend who checks his FB from time to time just to make some troubles etc. After all the communications we had, I can't believe if that's what he thinks...

It will be great if somebody who's more familiar with FB can tell me this is just a technical problem and he might have just missed my request of something like that. If that's not the case, I'd like to ask for suggestions, should I bring it up? He asked me to add him, he said he'd confirm my request, he told me it's ok to let me see what he's doing there...

[NaNi]

Well, it would sure bother me. A lot. Thankfully my SO had Facebook long before we met and she pushed me to create one too! ... but in all those months where I have been using it I never had any short of technical problems with friendship requests. Just mention to him one more time that you would like to be added to his friends? Maybe he will confirm it.

[LadyMarchHare]

This is mainly my opinion, but FB causes more drama in relationships than anything, as far as I've seen. My SO deleted his FB months ago, after we had friended each other, and while I was miffed at the time I knew he didn't use it that much and all I'd wanted it for was looking at his picture albums.

I can understand him not wanting to blast his personal life there, but honestly it's a social networking site, that's pretty much the entire idea of it, Myspace, and Twitter. There is an option to delete the activity message of 'x just changed their relationship status to in a relationship' on your profile so that they'd only know if they looked at his info, but again that whole relationship status thing causes more drama than it's worth. If you have another way of contacting your SO, ask him if he's been on FB recently and if he's gotten the request. I know they don't always show up instantly and if he has e-mail alerts for it he probably needs to check his inbox for the email saying you've requested the add.

Other than that, it's just a site, and who's on his friendlist doesn't really matter because 9 times out of 10 people don't talk to 80% of the folks on their friendlist.

[squiddie]

Honestly, I don't think this is a fight worth having. Like LMH said, most people don't talk to 80% of their friend list, at least not on a regular basis. I think I talk to about 20ish people on mine, and I have 150 friends...so yeah. Do the math.

As for him not adding you, it's possible that FB was being glitchy. I guess you could ask him if he got the request, and if not, have him request you. Or maybe he doesn't want you to be his facebook friend.

I just think that website causes so much unnecessary drama.

[TristenLove]

Mic refused to add me on his. He didn't want to create drama, and for people to get ideas.
WTF ever.
It was kind of a big deal to me. I wanted to be able to look at his stuff and talk to his family when he told them about me. I hated that he kept brushing me off and telling me 'not yet' even though the 'crazy' girls got added, exes, and even the girl who accused him of rape in high school. But the girlfriend can't be added? Doesn't seem right.
Last time I talked to him about it, he actually changed his settings so I couldn't look at anything.
He said he doesn't use it much, but when we weould skype he'd have people talking to him on it all the time.
Not that it matters now. I guess he can talk to whoever he wants.
Just wanted to let you know that I understand completely.

[LadyMarchHare]

Mic refused to add me on his. He didn't want to create drama, and for people to get ideas.
WTF ever.
It was kind of a big deal to me. I wanted to be able to look at his stuff and talk to his family when he told them about me. I hated that he kept brushing me off and telling me 'not yet' even though the 'crazy' girls got added, exes, and even the girl who accused him of rape in high school. But the girlfriend can't be added? Doesn't seem right.
Last time I talked to him about it, he actually changed his settings so I couldn't look at anything.
He said he doesn't use it much, but when we weould skype he'd have people talking to him on it all the time.
Not that it matters now. I guess he can talk to whoever he wants.
Just wanted to let you know that I understand completely.

And that entirely reinforces what I said. Oh yes it is aggravating, but we have to remember it's a website and that these places have histories of drama. I mean look at when Myspace first came out, people were 'hooking up' there and it was used as the reason so many supposed LDRs went wrong when someone turned up missing or running away. It can be a nice form of keeping up with people, but it creates a lot of shit in its wake because it's like high school where people are 'friending' certain people and not others, ignoring people, talking trash, starting drama with groups or events, and feelings get hurt. The website cannot and will not define your relationship.

Sorry if that's a bit soapbox-ish. I see enough FB drama to make me hate that place when it comes to dating.

[paulawriteslove]

You shouldn't let facebook cause a big problem in your relationship, especially unnecessary drama. But if it really is bothering you, then you should talk to him and ask him if he got your friend request.

[underthewater]

Hi, thanks everyone!

What really confuses me is the fact that he mentioned himself that I should add him as a friend, that he would delete his ex and her friends, that he didn't really use it and would delete stupid quiz etc so it didn't matter if I looked, I'm never that kind of demanding girlfriend who threatens the boyfriend "add me or break up" or anything like that. I just did what he told me to and now this.

I will mention it once more and see how he reacts. I don't want to be considered a dramatic girlfriend who may monitor her bf's facebook and gets jealous all the time once she's added (and that's why she's not added), it's definitely not about Facebook now.

[LadyMarchHare]

If it's his going back on his word it's more about then chances are he forgot. Goodness knows I go back on things I say I'll do either because I forgot or hesitated. I told my SO I'd leave my best friend in July, I left her two weeks ago. If it's bothering you, just give a gentle reminder. 'Oh, hey didn't you say you wanted me on FB? I sent a request, maybe it didn't go through.' Same with the ex thing.

[noodle]

My SO had to delete me cause of his parents. I later tho added him again (as if they'd know >_>) and he accepted. I have the "in a relationship" thingy up but he has nothin cause he doesnt want everyone to make a super fuzz about it and ask stupid questions plus hes scared of his parents findin out.
At first it kinda bugged me but then I thought like fuck it its just FB plus his close/best friends and partially cousins and brothers know about me so idc if his other 300 friends from FB know or not ^^
But yea just talk to him it makes things so much easier ^^ haha

[machstx]

i can understand your confusion since he said to add him.. if you were both moody like you said maybe he offered to add you n delete them just to end the convo? i would gently bring up the freind request. good luck

[Thad]

I'm torn as to how to answer this. I agree with parts of both of the arguments. However, I think I see some bigger relationship issues cropping up here. Nothing that will doom you per se, but things you'll need to address for the future. Specifically, you said:

He said he had all kind of people on his facebook, and he didn't want to reveal his personal life to all those people and get all kind of comments.

Something doesn't seem right with that statement. It seems like he is hiding your relationship. Now there will be people in your lives that may not agree with your relationship, but to hide it from them seems like a warning for future problems.

If he's trying to hide things from them, then what is he trying to hide from you?

That being said, maybe nothing and he has his reasons. The important thing is to find out why he wants to do that. I don't think he needs to change his facebook or anything like that if he doesn't want to, but he needs to be clear why he doesn't. That's part of communicating in a relationship, and that is something you'll need to continue to have a successful relationship -- CD or LD.

[underthewater]

Thanks everybody, I've already shortly mentioned it in an email to him mainly talking about his new apartment contract issues. I tried to sound normal and just asked if he had received it. Well I also said something like 'I think we're cool with the FB conversation we had right? But do let me know if there's any concern.'

When I really think about his current situation, I guess he's still in that "arrival" phrase and nothing is truly settled (his job, his accommodation, etc), and even he's not doing things he promised immediately, I probably should be more considerate and give him some more days to accomplish it. But on the other hand I don't want to let him have the impression that when he says something, he can always regret it later.

I will come back to let everyone know what happens then. I hope he just adds me tomorrow when he sees the email, and everything will just be fine. Honestly according to him, he barely has anything on there as he just deletes what other people write on his wall. I don't know, we will see.

[underthewater]

Update on my bf and Facebook problem

I'd apologize first as I don't know what I did yesterday when I posted in my own thread, but the thread was closed then!

So the background is my bf didn't want to have his relationship status shown on his FB, but he said I could be his friend so I'd know what's happening there. I added him, then I found a Hong Kong girl on my bf's FB was actually his ex while he told me before I was the first Chinese gf he'd ever had. We had a conversation during which both of us were a bit moody. Several days past he still hadn't confirmed my request so I posted here yesterday for suggestions.

I sent him an email asking casually if he got my request as people here suggested, today we talked on phone and I know he must still have some misgivings so I asked if we're totally cool. He hesitated for a second and said "well I just don't want to explain for this bit of thing or that bit of thing all the time, I don't have time for that. You are welcome to join but I don't want to deal with all that."
"Do you think I'll have that time to monitor you on FB? I've loads of things to do!"
"Well your behavior said you had that time..."
"What behavior? I think we've talked about that! We had a misunderstanding before, you explained, and I got you. I thought we'd turned that page over and were cool on this."
"That's true..."
"And I won't monitor you on FB baby, I just told you how busy I'd be in the coming two months. And that's just not something I do."
"Good, that's good."
"I don't want to make you think that I'm a paranoid, unreasonable girlfriend because I really don't think I am."
"No you are not!"
"Ok. Oh, and for your information, you asked me to add you on FB in the first place!"
"Well, I can't remember that..."
"Remember I said maybe we should put on the 'in a relationship' thing so people may know you're not available once you go there and add more friends on? And you said you didn't want to share too much personal information but I could add you there as a friedn so I'd know what's going on?"
"Oh, yeah..."
"See? So are we all cool about it?"
"Yeah, I'll add you the next time I log in."

What I want to say here is that I think sometimes guys may have concerns on something, they may need reassurance as well, but they don't want to ask for it, so they behave in a way that girls find unacceptable. Sometimes an argument may bring it out, but if the girl can sense it and gives him an opportunity to let it out peacefully, the result might be very different. Anyone has similar experience to share?


ADMIN EDIT: I have merged the two threads together You must have accidentally check marked "Close this thread" when leaving a quick reply on the old thread. This can be undone, but since this new thread was started and got many replies, I just decided to merge the two together.

[pytsip]

Just recently actually, my boyfriend came home for his grandfathers funeral, during the week that he was home he kept avoiding me, turns out the reason why he was avoiding me was because he wanted to break up. After he finally told me this we sat down and talked and he told me that he just wasn't sure if he could handle the long distance relationship because he was going to be in China until August and then going to Mexico and he could possibly be gone for more than 3 years. He said that he still loved me and that he wanted to work on the relationship when he finally came home and that he still wanted to remain friends and talk on a regular basis while he was in China, but that he just couldn't deal with the emotions of having a long distance relationship.

I asked him exactly how if he still loved me and still had feelings for me and still wanted to make things work when he returned home, how he thought that us being "just friends" would change the emotional aspect. His response to me was "Why do you think it will change? if you don't think it'll change then I don't understand why it's a big deal" and I was like "well personally, I can't be just friends with the guy that I love more than anyone and care about more than anyone, I just can't do that" and he responds "well, yeah but I just don't know,"

The funny part is, that I had been really debating on asking him if he wanted to have an open relationship while he was abroad, and I brought it up to him when we had this conversation and his reply was "It's not even about the sex, I don't care about that, I just really don't know if I can deal with the emotional aspect of this long distance relationship."

So yeah I think that he definitely needed reassurance on this, because he wasn't making sense, basically he's saying "I want to be with you, I have feelings for you, I love you, I still want to talk to you on a regular basis, but I can't be your boyfriend because the emotions are too much" what he didn't understand was that the emotions were going to be there whether we had the title or not.

Before he left to go back to China he realized it, we're back together because he also realized that he didn't want to lose what we have. So it just took some time for me to get it through his male brain that what we were arguing about made absolutely no sense.