Missing Facebook Relationship Statuses

Facebook relationship statuses. There are not nearly enough of them. The default statuses are Single, In a (open) relationship, Engaged, Married, It’s complicated, or Widowed. But these hardly cover all possible relational nuances.

That’s exactly why social media strategist Rob Cottingham made up 11 new Facebook relationship statuses, along with their appropriate heart icons.

I have to imagine there have been screaming, tear-filled fights because one partner clicked “In a relationship” while the other clicked “Hey, let’s not rush things.” Or, maybe worse for some people, “Sweetheart, what are you putting down for ‘relationship status’?” “I’m glad you asked, because I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

Rob‘s suggested statuses:

• Well, one of us is monogamous
• Married. Back off
• It’s over, but only one of us knows it
• Just broke up
• Broken up, together again, broken up, together again,…
• Back together, but it’s hanging by a thread
• It’s complicated. No, I mean REALLY complicated
• Staying together for the kids
• Purely physical
• In a relationship but open-sourced, if you get my drift
• Parents of small child. No sex in past 24 months.

Another blogger, called Joe Taylor, more recently did the same thing. He proposes six new statuses:

Joe‘s suggested statuses:

• one of us thinks we’re in a relationship
• refusing to admit it’s over
• in an on, off, on again type relationship
• in a relationship but we don’t know what we’re doing
• recently single and probably bitter
• in a relationship for the sex only

Our own suggestions:

• In a relationship even after running into Tiger Woods the other day
• It’s complicated ever since he destroyed my FarmVille for laughs
• In a love triangle with [insert name] and [insert name]
• This close from breaking up if he doesn’t start giving more attention to me than his iPhone soon

So, do we need any other statuses to cover all possible love affairs?

UPDATE: Here’s a selection of statuses suggested by our readers.

Suggestion by Snuggles:

• married to [insert name], who is married to Star Trek

Suggested by John Obi Wan Kahnoski:

• Relationship on hold while I go on another WoW bender
• Looking
• Pretending to look but just after sex
• Looking for someone new before dumping the current one
• Stalking [insert name]
• Emo
• Spinster with too many cats

Suggested by Edo:

• Dreaming of [insert name, eg. Lucy Liu]

Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments, or on our Facebook page.