BY Lux Alptraum
July 5, 2007
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The Internet provides endless opportunities to put your life online, to tell the world all about what you’re doing, and — more importantly, at least for this post — who you’re doing. Even if you’re not blatant about it, chances are that, if you’re dating someone, their picture will show up with increasing frequency in your Flickr stream, say, and friends and followers will begin to get the idea.

But is that actually a good idea? Do we really want, or need, to publicize our relationships that much, to give the world an eye into how we live, and who we live with?

On the one hand, it’s tempting to live publicly: partly for the little attention whore that lives inside all of us, partly because it feels nice, special even, to put up pictures of someone we love (or love to fuck). It makes things a little more official — just like clicking the “In a Relationship” box on MyOKFriendBookSpacester. A public relationship is more real, right? (After all, that’s part of why people get married.)

On the other hand, is it really that good for a relationship to be in the public eye? Do we really want, or need, to have the world informed, and following, our every little development? Our every step towards coupledom?

I used to think that if you loved someone, you’d naturally want to tell the world, naturally want to plaster their picture all over the Internet. But these days, I’m starting to see the benefit in keeping things hidden, keeping things to myself.

These days, I’m starting to prefer to keep the Internet away from my relationships.

[Photo by Bill Cammack]