Love through Status Updates

You met him briefly in a bar. A quick hello. He bought you a drink. Would’ve bought you two, but you had a boyfriend. You definitely didn’t let him kiss you in the back alley.

Going back with him to his apartment was out of the question.

You weren’t that sort of girl. The kind that cheats that is.

Weeks later when you were off again with your boyfriend, you looked him up on Facebook. He didn’t tell you his name, but you had your ways. In some ways it was a small town. Finding him wasn’t that difficult.

He had a girlfriend. According to his Facebook status they got together a week before you met him.

Good thing you didn’t go back to his apartment that night.

It didn’t matter, you knew that in a few weeks you’d patch things up with your boyfriend and things would be back to normal. The sex would be fantastic. It’s why you put up with him and his jealous fits. You had the moral high ground, you’d never cheated on him. He had nothing to be jealous of.

So what if you were a flirt?

You didn’t know why, but you kept going back to that stranger’s profile. He didn’t have it protected, so stalking it was fair game. There was a momentary twinge of guilt when you clicked on his girlfriend’s profile. An open book. Pictures of the two of them together. Her sappy statuses she tagged him in declaring her undying love.

Months later you still scrolled through their profiles. Sappier statuses. Fewer pictures.

You weren’t surprised when you looked one day and he was listed as single. Even less surprising was that she was still listed as being in a relationship. They were no longer friends.

Did she cheat on him? Did she find somebody new? Or had she just not logged into Facebook yet to find out she was now single?

You’d seen this play out time and time again with your friends. True love that wouldn’t last a year. Love announced to the world in status updates.

At least you knew where you stood with your boyfriend. Together most of the time, decently happy. Bitter fights that ended in separation. Then somebody would break down and extend an olive branch. It was always accepted. Because, quite frankly, you knew the makeup sex was what you were both there for.

Eliza Jaquays

At the age of six, Eliza was certain of two things. The first was that she had stories to tell. The second was that she had no talent for illustrating them herself. Talent or no, she still wrote and illustrated her first book, one that should be located and locked away if only to prevent her parents from embarrassing her terribly by showing it off alongside baby pictures. Now she spends her days writing stories that she isn't embarrassed to show off after a little bit of polishing.