Facebook - every single woman's worst enemy

Lately I’ve been thinking about my plans for Facebook – as in, there are none.  No big announcements, no sonogram pictures as my profile picture, no constant pregnancy updates.  Mainly I came up with this concept because as a single woman I know how much it crush(ed, es) me to log on every day only to see a flood of pregnancies and engagements and weddings and “in a relationship” status updates, and don’t want to become one of those people that unintentionally makes other people feel bad.  But I think there’s more to it than just “wanting to be private” or wanting to save some infertile person’s feelings.  If I really dig deep, I am afraid I’m not going to get the kind of attention married women get and that it’ll hurt my feelings.

This thought crossed my mind as I checked in yesterday to see a married friend of mine with a three-year-old announce her second pregnancy.  Of course there were a flood of “likes” and congratulations, as there should be.  But there was something about the tone of the congratulations that gave me pause – everyone commenting on what a “beautiful family” they have, how their family will be complete, how everyone guessed they were trying again but didn’t want to say anything.  Then I pictured my own announcement – “I’m making a person” or my personal favorite, “…is having a baby to see what all the hubbub is about.”  And I pictured the responses.  Probably several of my jerkoff friends making sarcastic comments thinking it’s a joke, followed by people just posting question marks or asking me if it’s real, who’s the dad, etc.  In other words, hardly the “we’re so happy for you, you’re so blessed” comments all the married women get.  I think it would really crush me, so no, no big announcement on Facebook.  Not until the kid is here and people don’t think it’s a joke anymore.

And thinking about all of this just made me sad.  I mean, not blaming people – this is just how it is.  People won’t know how to feel about it, and it’s natural to respond with humor or shock.  Also there are people, mostly those I don’t know very well, who will judge me because of their dumbass religions.  I think it’s too much to ask that everyone chime in with “you’re so blessed!” comments when I’m single, they never thought of me as a kid person, they don’t know the situation from a one line Facebook status, and have no idea of the whole emotional journey that got me to this point.  So, no big announcement from me.

But it sucks because here is yet another facet of modern life that I am being deprived of because I’m single.  I don’t get to have the joy of tons of well wishers chiming in on my profile page, because I’m not attached to some man.  I don’t get to have people being genuinely happy for me until I sit each person down and tell them the whole story, so they then understand.  Just popping up pregnant can mean any number of things – I can bet almost everyone will think it was a onetime “oopsie” with some guy I met online or (horrors) some ex- or something; they’re going to assume it wasn’t wanted but I’m making the best of it, that it’s somehow shameful or a bad situation.  Umm….no. I have every intention of being “loud and proud” about all this – I’ll tell anyone who asks all about the donor and how I did it and why.  But then why won’t I do this on Facebook?  It’s not like anyone’s going to be downright mean to me – they are my “friends” after all, it’s not some open forum with strangers who can abuse me and then disappear.  But somehow just seeing all the pure joy that married women get in response to their pregnancy announcements and knowing it can’t possibly be that simple for me, makes me just want to avoid the whole thing.  After all, do I really need one more thing to stress out about?

In the meantime, today is the big day when I tell my whole family.  It’s been difficult because we wanted to set up some kind of Skype thing so at least we can all see each other, but my cousin doesn’t have internet at his house, so that’s out.  So now we’re trying to arrange a speakerphone deal, which sounds very unsatisfying to me – I can picture it now, not being able to hear each other, and it just being a big mess.  Part of me would rather just call people individually later, but I feel like I need to explain why I’m not there and this is the only way to do it.  I was supposed to make the call a few minutes ago but was then asked to call back in three hours.  Sigh.  So I guess now I just sit around wanting to puke figuring out exactly how to say this.  Should be interesting.  Let’s hope I get some validation today.  I really need it!