Picture this – Sally and Joe have been dating for a few years and things are getting pretty serious. One night Joe gets down on his knee and finally proposes. Sally is ecstatic! She has dreamt of this moment her whole life. She says yes, they shed a few tears and she can’t wait to share the news with everyone. So who does she tell first? No it’s not her family. Nope, it’s not her friend since second grade either. Instead, Sally rushes home, goes straight to her computer, logs into Facebook, and gleefully changes her status from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Engaged”. But don’t worry mom and dad – you were next on her list.

For some reason we tell Facebook everything! Just how much? Depends, but they likely know our relationship status, gender, age, birthday, sexual orientation, geographic location, education level, area of profession, our current mood, heck they even know the latest on our friends. So much for keeping secrets!

Facebook knows everything. Women are conscious of their weight, Facebook knows that. Soon to be brides are even more conscious of their weight – guess what, Facebook knows that too. So it’s no surprise that as people change their status from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Engaged’, just like our dear friend Sally, they start to see a hiatus of ads about losing weight. These can range from “Want to get rid of that muffin top?” to “Don’t be a fat bride.” I assure you though, it’s OK, these ads will all disappear as soon as you change that status of yours from ‘Engaged’ to ‘Married’…hope you weren’t planning on having a long engagement! And after you tie the knot? Oh, it gets even better. You’re likely to see “Trying to have a baby?” “Fertility Issues?” Come on Facebook, cut the ladies some slack, they’ve only been married a few days!

The Washington Post did a great article on this a few weeks back that should have been called “My Facebook page called me fat” (so we’ll just act like it was). Check it out, but don’t do anything you’ll regret in the morning –I assure you, your BFF didn’t purposely hurt your feelings.