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Last semester, Bill Gostic, a junior at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, started hanging out with "this one girl. It was sort of romantic," he says, "but I told her I didn't want anything serious, just to have fun. And she says, 'Yeah, just for fun.' "
Gostic smiled ruefully.
One night not long ago, he was clicking around Facebook.com, a social networking Web site popular with college students, and noticed that the girl's profile had changed. The box indicating her relationship status, which used to be checked "single," was suddenly, chillingly blank. He asked her about it; she says that she'd like both of them to switch their profiles to "in a relationship," and, if he didn't feel the same -- well, they wouldn't be having so much fun anymore.
"Then it just became this slow struggle," Gostic says. He's still seeing her and has erased his single status, though he hasn't filled in the fateful "in a relationship" bubble.
"I haven't caved completely," he says.
Young love, never easy, is now more tortured than ever thanks to social Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Friendster that ask users to define their dating status. Those in the first throes of passion agonize over the right moment to check the "in a relationship" option; others who feel the fire dying debate the protocol of switching back to "single" -- or even, on MySpace, to "swinger." Partners often disagree on their mutual situation, and the resulting drama pervades college campuses and twentysomething enclaves across the country.
The predicament is particularly vexing for a youthful dating culture accustomed to super-casual, label-free relationships.
"It sounds really juvenile, but there's a lot of pressure involved in this," says Edyta Sitko, 24, who works for an environmental nonprofit in Baltimore.
Recently, Sitko and a woman she'd been getting serious with had "the talk." Only, instead of "Will you be my girlfriend?" the bigger question was "Can I say you're my girlfriend on Facebook?" When the woman says yes, go ahead and switch your box, Sitko rejoiced.
The term for this is "Facebook Official." Becoming Facebook Official is a huge step for young couples, even though frequently the change occurs without a real-world conversation -- just with the click of a mouse. The profile portions of social networking Web sites are electronic questionnaires designed to keep a person's friends and acquaintances up to date. The profiles are constantly in flux; Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, estimates that 20 percent of the 8 million profiles change every few days, and some evolve daily.
Meanwhile, Ty Tashiro, an assistant professor of psychology of the University of Maryland, College Park who teaches a class on interpersonal relationships, warns about the danger of replacing important conversations with online machinations.
"They break up over Facebook," he says. "They don't even break up over the phone -- you log onto you partner's Facebook and find out they're single. It is an impoverished way to communicate."
He says that human beings have evolved to express feelings face to face and that important cues are lost online.
Steven Yang, 19, wanted his meaning to come across loud and clear. The Hopkins sophomore and his girlfriend had argued Thursday night, but on Friday morning, rather than mope around on his computer, he charged through the 90-degree heat with an armload of wilting roses.
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