Do you have Facebook Relations?

Today, I was just going through my Facebook Profile and saw a share.  The share was very funny. It compared a boy’s and a girl’s Facebook Profile. The message conveyed was a boy, whose status update says he has won a Nobel Prize, hardly gets a couple of comments and likes. On the other hand, a girl ,whose status update says she has bought a lovely pet, gets hundreds of comments and likes. Along with enjoying the share I also realized that, though it was an exaggeration, it was not completely incorrect. Most of the boys, though don’t get much attention, feel much proud in commenting on a girl’s profile. I am sure girls enjoy that too.

Going by my habit, I started thinking what makes boys going and commenting on girls’ profiles and what stops girls doing the same on boys’ profiles (going largely by the Indian Society and Social Networking).  It’s not only about commenting. Most of the boys thoroughly enjoy adding girls in their friends list while girls seem to be avoiding that (intentionally or unintentionally). Had this been related to the information that opposite genders attract each other, both the sides should have been doing the same.  But this is not what is actually happening.  

Going by the history of what I have written till now, you can be certain that this is not what I am going to talk about in my today’s blog. My intent is not to appeal to girls to accept boys’ friends request or to make them giving more comments and liking more of the boys’ status updates. We will again go one step deeper to make out something new out of this observation that I had and most of you would have had too.  

OK, so let me come directly to the question, what’s wrong here? Is it that girls are introvert and boys are extrovert? Is it that girls are afraid of strangers? Is it that only boys are interested in having more relations or it is that girls are still living in a society which is not open enough to give them a chance to have stronger relations with boys?  We live in a society and each one of us looks for new relations. Being social animals we do enjoy new relations, new friends, and new people in our life and their companies too. This is not new too, as this has been happening for many centuries. Then what has changed?

Thinking a little, this is what I could get as an answer. We still love making relations but what has changed is the definition of a relation. Now we don’t like to have relations which are Relations, rather we prefer something called as Facebook Relation. A relation in true sense (any relation, friendship or parents-children relation or husband-wife relation) for me is the one in which both the sides related are fully committed to each other’s happiness though they don’t expect such commitment from the other side.  So as long as you are committed to a relation fully, you have a true relation or you share a true relation from your side. You never bother if the relative is fully committed too. As far as our Faceboook case is concerned, either the boys are not really looking for such a relation or even if they are, the girls don’t think they are. Since the girls don’t think that Facebook could be a mean to get a true relation, be it friendship or love, they don’t really bother to do something like this. Some of you might differ here but I would just repeat that I am picking the case of Indian Social Networking on Facebook and there can be a big lot of exceptions also.

Something to note here; is it that only boys look for so called Facebook Relations and girls look for the true relations. Let’s try to find the answer to this question. Over the past decade there has been a big change in our outlook about relations. We have started hatting something which is the root of every relation. We hate commitments and being committed. Instead of looking for a true relation, we look for a relation that could satisfy our ego and make us bigger in the eyes of the beholders. Boys do feel proud of having a Facebook Friend of opposite gender, which might not be the case with girls. In fact in today’s world we are always looking for relations which can give us a sense of pride. We don’t like friends who stop us going the wrong way. We don’t like parents who always scold us for adopting the bad habits. We want our spouses to be good looking. We want our spouses to be rich.

I am not saying that this is the case with all of us and there is something very wrong going on. My intent is rather to differentiate the most desired attribute of a relation which is commitment. There is nothing wrong in making a relation that suits your choice, however with a lack of commitment in the relation it would always remain a Facebook Relation and nothing more than that.