Expert: Don - 4/12/2007

Question
Hello,

I need an honest opinion, please tell me if I'm over-reacting or something.

I have an online profile on this thing called Facebook that many people use, I am not sure if you have heard of it but it is somewhat akin to MySpace, Friendster, etc.

I was dating a guy for a short while and we were still at the 'dating' stage. He told me that we were not ready to be boyfriend/girlfriend yet, which at the time I did not think was a big deal since we had only been dating for a month. On your online profile you can add someone as your significant other and it will say "____ is in a relationship with _____"

The entire time we were going out it said he was single and he didn't change it. So I added him on my facebook profile as my significant other. He accepted my request but told me that this doesn't change our status.

When it showed up that we were dating, on our webpages people left comments saying 'finally! you two have admitted you're dating after all this time'

I didn't think much of it becuase he began referring to me as his girlfriend pretty soon after that.

Anyway, he recently broke up with me. So I took down his name from my profile and changed my status to single. The day after he broke up with me he put another girl's name as his girlfriend on his profile. I was almost in tears thinking he had dumped me for another girl and was dating her already.

I asked him about it, and it turns out they just put they were dating as a joke. It has been up there for a while and he hasn't bothered to change it even though he logs in every day.

Still...why would you put that as a joke on your profile the day after you break up with someone. I know that joke wasn't necessarily played on me, but still...he has got to have known I would have eventually seen that. Maybe he thought I would know it's a joke...but still.

Ok here is my question...he was SO hesitant to put me up on there as his girlfriend, he didn't want to change his online status from single to a relatoinship with me...but yet he has no qualms about putting another girl's name on there as his girlfriend as a joke and keeping it up there.

This bugs me. I know it's some stupid online stuff but something is bothering me about this whole situation. It's like he's being very callous towards my feelings or something. Please tell me if I'm overreacting and just can't take a joke.

Answer
Who exactly is the joke on, like what is funny about the two of them dating and who are they trying to fool?

I'm going say you're not over-reacting because anytime a person's feelings are hurt, then it's not over-reacting to question the person who hurt their feelings.

I also find it highly unlikely that this is a joke. I can't understand how he could not have ever put a real relationship up on Facebook but be so quick to put a fake one up and leave it up despite it hurting a person he claimed to care about feelings. This leads me to believe that his current relationship isn't a joke and it's quite real.

So no you aren't overreacting when it comes to your feelings, but you are overreacting to voice to him how upset you are, despite the fact that you two use to date, you no longer date and he isn't obliged to be concerned about your feelings. Would it be nice if he cared, well of course but since you two aren't dating any longer he doesn't have to go out of his way not to hurt your feelings.

So pretty much the only thing you can do is get over the fact that he did this to you, it's not that serious anyway. Time for you to move on to bigger and better men.