“It’s just Facebook, it doesn’t mean anything.”

I hate when people say this.

When I was in my first year of university and living in a hostel with mainly strangers, I was, I now see, suffering from social anxiety. Not so bad that I couldn’t function in society, but it meant that I made very few friends that year and was nervous a lot. My head bombarded me with negative thoughts constantly, especially assumptions about how others perceived me. I cared far too much what other people thought. If I said “hey” to someone in a friendly tone, and they didn’t sound friendly when they said hi back, I instantly thought they didn’t like me and felt uncomfortable around them thereafter. I was too nervous to approach anyone; even people I’d already spoken to many times before. I’d spend ages working up the courage to approach them and worrying that they didn’t like me or that I was going to say something wrong. I never really felt like I fit in. People would show up in other people’s rooms unexpectedly to say hi and hang out, and when I did this I always got the vibe (whether imagined or not) that I was annoying them. I spent a lot of time in my room with the door closed. In my hostel end of year book, in the section on me, the person who filled it out wrote “who?” next to “Nickname.” Ouch. Although someone also wrote “sweetness” in the “Known For” bit which was nice.

At the start of that year I realised I was living on the same floor as a guy I knew from my home city. I told him on the first day in the hostel that I was too shy to approach people and was relying on him to introduce us to people, and then once that was over with I would chat away happily. I doubt many people would think I was shy at all once I got talking – I’m very bubbly and chatty. But it was that initial contact that terrified me.

Anyway, this guy was like a safe haven for me. He already knew me, we got along, and though he probably didn’t know how I felt, he was very helpful at making me feel less lonely. I’d hang out in his room a lot and just chat. We were both in long distance relationships at the time (probably another reason I didn’t make many friends – I was travelling home most weekends) and so it was nice to have someone to relate to with that.

I felt like he was a good friend, and though we sort of lost touch after that first year, we were Facebook friends, and when I saw him in the street we’d stop and hug and chat.

However, sometime last year I thought to tell him something and went onto his Facebook page to chat to him, only to realise he’d deleted me as a friend. Or had he? I thought maybe I was remembering things wrong and we’d never been Facebook friends in the first place. So I added him again. He never added me back. “Okay,” I thought, “Maybe he just doesn’t go on Facebook”. But then I saw he hadn’t altered his privacy settings and I could see all his updates. He’d been using Facebook a lot, had seen my friend request, and declined it.

Why did this hurt my feelings so much? When I saw this, I thought a whole bunch of things: Have I done something to make him not like me? Has someone said something negative about me to him? Was it a one-sided friendship all along and did he not actually like me at all? Had I imagined that we were friends and he secretly thought otherwise?

The thing is a lot of people would say that who you are friends with on Facebook is meaningless. Perhaps for some people it is. But while having someone as a Facebook friend doesn’t necessarily mean you’re friends with them in real life, un-friending someone, or not accepting their friend request, is deliberately showing that you are not interested in having that person talking to you or seeing what’s going on in your life. It’s basically a way of saying “I’m not interested in knowing you.”

There are some exceptions, sure, where you might not accept a request of your boss or grandparent because, while you like them in real life, you don’t want them seeing all your drunken photos and watching you swear like a sailor in your updates. But I know for me personally, I will only deny a friend request if I a) dislike someone or find them annoying and b) barely know them. Friends from primary school who I haven’t seen since then? Sure, why not! Friend of my sister who I’ve met once but never spoken to and will probably never see again? No.

A friend and I were discussing this, and we both agreed that to us personally, we’d only delete someone as a friend if we genuinely didn’t think they’d care or be offended. I could probably safely unfriend some of the people I went to primary school with, who I was barely friends with then, and who I never see now. They probably wouldn’t even notice. But someone who I was once really close friends with and spent a lot of time with in high school might be upset to know that I’ve decided I don’t want to know them anymore.

And that’s what it is. It’s actively deciding that this person isn’t worth having around, even online. If you really see your Facebook friends list as meaningless, unimportant, and nothing to do with the real world, then why do you find it necessary to still pick and choose who you want on it, unfriending who you don’t? People don’t just arbitrarily delete friends at random; they do it for a reason.

Yes, people drift apart and are no longer close friends. I have people on my friends list who I was very close with in high school, and who I no longer hang out with now. Time and distance has meant we haven’t kept in touch. Sometimes when you go a long time without seeing someone, it feels forced to keep trying to make it work and keep in touch. But this doesn’t mean I never want to speak to them again, or have no interest in their life. If I saw them in the street I’d say hi and ask how they’re going. While I’m not going to ask them to hang out, I still remember our friendship fondly and think well of them.

Perhaps because this is how I think of my Facebook friends, I find it hard to agree when people say “it’s just Facebook”. Facebook is huge. Just under half the population use it, a lot of whom use it daily. It is one of the ways we keep in touch, talk, and show each other what we’re up to. It is how we display our lives to each other.

People joke that relationships aren’t official until they’re “Facebook official”. Some roll their eyes at this. I’ve had ex-boyfriends say, “Why do we have to put it on Facebook? We’re together, that should be enough.” I’ve heard similar things from many different people. If you want to keep your private life private, that’s up to you. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to show your Facebook friends that you are in a relationship. It means other people won’t mistakenly think you are single and hit on you. It means you aren’t ashamed to have people knowing who you are with. In my opinion, the people who piss and moan about the “need” to “show off” your relationship on Facebook have tended to be the ones who didn’t want to be in a relationship in the first place. If you’re not embarrassed to be in a relationship, what exactly is the harm in having it known to your Facebook friends? If someone wants to explain this one to me, please do.

Another form of unfriending is the “I’m angry and to prove how much I hate you I’m going to delete you – that’ll show you how little I care!” deleting.

Even I’ve been guilty of this one. To be fair, it probably did fall under the “if they probably won’t care that you’ve deleted them then it’s okay” umbrella. The end of my first year social anxiety story ends up with me finding a little group of stay-up-laters who all seemed to share my sense of humour and movie tastes. I hung out with most if not all of them, every day. Seemed like a happy ending! I sat with them for meals, had heart to hearts with some of them, and got drunk with them. After a while, I felt like I was part of the group.

Then came second year Uni. They all went flatting together, and I flatted 10 minutes away. The friendship got one-sided fast. I always visited them, they never visited me. If I wanted to see them, I had to go to them. Because they were all in the same building, their friendship was effortless – nobody needed to invite each other anywhere, they could just start drinking or watching a movie and everyone was already there. Everybody except me. Nobody thought to invite me. Nobody texted me to see how I was.

In third year Uni I was much better off. I shook the social anxiety and became very positive, confident and happy. I managed to genuinely stop caring what people thought. I realised that I had some friends who always made the effort to invite me over and texted me first. Friends who invited me to parties or just to hang out and who sincerely seemed to care how I was doing. It made me frustrated and hurt that I’d put so much time and energy into a one-sided friendship with people who didn’t seem to notice when I wasn’t around for months at a time. In a cathartic moment I deleted them off Facebook to signify the end of fake friendships, or something like that. I’ve run into them since then and they have been nothing but friendly to me so I kind of feel bad about the impulsive un-friend, but again, I doubt they really care.

Another time I kissed a guy in town, added him on Facebook, and we talked a little. We arranged to meet up in town again, and twice, when the time came, he didn’t reply or avoided me. So naturally I let that one go and deleted him on Facebook. I barely knew him, and I thought he was being a dick for standing me up instead of just saying he wasn’t interested, so I un-friended him. No point keeping people like that around. Funnily enough he texted me a few days ago at 3am, about a year later, saying sorry for being a dick. Wonder where that came from?

I think there’s a difference between unfriending someone because they aren’t in your life and/or you don’t want them to be, and the people who delete their friends every time they get mad at them, only to re-add them when they make up, then repeat cycle. I had a friend who would delete people all the time in this way, and I found it funny because she obviously thought they would care, when they all just rolled their eyes at her for being childish. So how do you draw the line? Can you ever feel justified in unfriending someone without being deemed childish? I guess if you use Facebook a lot, put up photos, tell people what you’ve got going on, it’s your choice who you feel comfortable knowing so much about you, and if you’re not friends with someone in real life, then you shouldn’t feel obligated to be their Facebook friend. I think that it becomes childish when you’re doing it all the time and often to people who are still very firmly planted in your life or friendship circle.

Okay this has become more diary-entry than blog and I apologise for that. I will try to summarise: It isn’t “just Facebook” and you know it. It isn’t just words on a screen. There is a person with thoughts and feelings on the other side of that screen, and while what they get upset about may not be what you get upset about, doesn’t mean their feelings are invalid. Just because those feelings are over a silly social media site, doesn’t make it okay to dismiss them. What we do online, particularly on Facebook, often reflects how we see the world, and others, in real life.

Oh and anyone who knew me in first year and hasn’t seen me since, I think I’m a pretty different person now. Definitely less anxious and awkward, less drunk when I drink, less eager to please, more likely to realise if I’m actually being annoying or intruding, and well… happier. More fun. If you’ve stuck with me on Facebook and are kind enough to read my ramblings, I’d love for you to say hi. And for that small group who have had two-sided friendships with me since first year, I love you to pieces.

In health classes in school we were always taught that “no means no”. If you say no, and they force themselves on you anyway, then that is rape. Simple right? But it’s not that simple and often grey areas are simply ignored or not talked about.

Can it be rape if you’re saying yes?

Example one: A woman is having sex with her boyfriend who she loves, and it’s really hurting her badly. She is crying, she is uncomfortable, she is not showing any signs of enjoyment or participation… but she loves her boyfriend and wants to please him and so when he asks if he should continue she says yes, even though she means no. How can he continue when I’m crying and in pain? Why does he want to continue when I’m clearly not enjoying it? To this woman, emotionally, it feels like rape, but she won’t call it that because she said yes – she gave him permission – and besides, this is her boyfriend who she loves, he wouldn’t rape her, right?

People will have two views on this scenario. One camp will say “Why would he continue to have sex with her when she’s in pain – even though she’s said yes? Can he really be that blind to her body language? Can he really be so selfish as to ignore her tears and pain in order to get laid?”

The other will say, “If she was in pain, she shouldn’t have said yes, plain and simple.”

Example two: A woman is staying over at a guy’s house that she has consensually slept with several times before and who she really likes. She tells him she doesn’t want to sleep with him because she has a headache, she’s tired, and she’s not in the mood. He starts off trying to get her in the mood, kissing her neck, touching her chest, but she tells him to cut it out. He stops, they continue cuddling but five minutes later he’s giving it another go. She tells him to stop, he stops, then tries again in another five minutes. He repeats this several times and she grows more and more frustrated with him. Eventually he stops trying to get her in the mood and instead just asks for sex, over and over. She keeps saying no and saying she wants to sleep. He won’t stop bugging her and pleading with her. Oh yeah, pal, your desperate pleas for sex are so turning me on right now. She knows he won’t stop bugging her until she gives in so even though she doesn’t want to… she says yes and goes through the motions to “get it over with” so he’ll leave her alone. She feels used and upset, but it’s not rape right, because she said yes?

Two camps again. The first will say, “Pressuring someone and bugging someone to do something they don’t want to do until they give in and say yes to get you to leave them alone is wrong, plain and simple.”

The second will say, “She should have kept saying no or left the room – by saying yes she was allowing it to happen and it’s not rape.”

I don’t think either woman in these scenarios would call the guy a rapist because they have placed the blame squarely on their own shoulders: “I shouldn’t have said yes”.

Some women say yes when they want to be saying no for several reasons. They might be in shock and can’t bring themselves to say anything. They might be hoping that their partner will notice that they are lying there, upset, and will stop on their own. They might be really drunk. They might feel like they can’t say no to their boyfriend because they are in love with them. They might feel trapped, like there’s no way to stop the hassling and pressure but to give in. Whatever the reason, I don’t think it’s fair to place the entire burden and blame on the woman as some people often do. Those people in camp two who see it as black and white: “Well she should have said no” – why aren’t they saying, “That man shouldn’t have put her in that position where she needs to?”

Women, particularly young women, need to be taught to be more assertive and to walk away when they feel pressured. But more importantly, men need to be taught about the grey areas of consent. It’s different from person to person, but I would argue that a yes isn’t a yes if it isn’t enthusiastic. You know what someone who is interested in fucking you looks like: They are into it. Their body language shows this. They are pulling you towards them or telling you they want you, or initiating contact. Someone who is enthusiastically consenting is not lying there crying or in pain. Someone enthusiastically consenting doesn’t have to be begged for sex, or pressured into it. They aren’t so drunk they’re basically asleep.

Here’s where more grey areas come in: Sometimes, in normal, healthy relationships, one partner or the other has sex when they’re not really in the mood, because they want to please their partner and feel like sex is an important part of the relationship. “Sure”, they think, “I’m not really in the mood, but I’ll try my best to do it anyway”. This is different. This is not someone being hassled or bugged into sex; this is someone making the decision to have sex despite not being really in the mood themselves. This is someone happily choosing to do something to please their partner because they want to make them happy too, not someone who feels obligated to do it, or is miserable about doing it.

Something I want to be more strongly emphasised in sex education in schools is this: Just because he is your boyfriend (or she is your girlfriend) doesn’t mean they take ownership of your body. Being in a relationship with someone doesn’t mean they get to use your body however they want, whenever they want. Just because you have slept with someone before, doesn’t mean you are obligated to sleep with them again – even if you are in a relationship. Even if you are in love. Even if you’ve never said no to them before. Even if you’ve slept with a lot of people before them.

And in reverse: Just because you are in a relationship with someone, doesn’t mean they are always consenting and willing to have sex with you. Just because they have said yes before, doesn’t mean it’s always a yes. Just because they have done something with an ex, doesn’t mean they are obligated to do it with you. Gentle persuasion is fine if you’ve slept with them before and respect each other’s boundaries – there’s nothing wrong with trying to get your partner in the mood – but you have to read the signals. You should be able to tell if it’s a “Not now, no, get away from me” or an “Hmm I wasn’t in the mood before but now…” and if you can’t tell, or aren’t that great at reading body language then ask. A simple, “is this okay?” will do. Better to feel a bit awkward asking than to risk doing something that someone isn’t into and having them too scared or awkward to say no. And if they’re just lying there looking upset / bored take the hint. Do you really want to fuck someone who isn’t wanting to fuck you? Think about that before you put the pressure on.

Here’s where a few guys, in my experience, have pulled the slut line. A direct quote from a former male friend:

“other girls ruin it for u if u believe that…which is fine to believe but the sluts who are like hmmm na actually theyre right, i do want sex ruin it for the other girls coz we generalize girls like oh she changed her mind after, why wont the other girl?”

Hey, how about the obvious:Because all women aren’t the same? Because maybe the “sluts” you’re comparing girls to a) were also pressured into saying yes or b) started off not being in the mood then became in the mood. Not so hard to grasp. Women aren’t always in the mood. There is often a point where you go from “no thanks” to “okay you’ve turned me on, let’s do this.” This doesn’t mean they were saying no to be a tease, or that all women will eventually be in the mood if you pester them enough. That makes no sense!

This guy deleted me from Facebook after this “hey, maybe don’t pressure girls into sex any more” conversation… so I doubt he’s taken this on board, but if you’re reading… come on dude, I’m not the bad guy here.

I also must add that though I’m mainly mentioning males as the pressuring force, it can obviously go both ways and there are also men out there who have felt pressured into sex and that’s not cool either! Unfortunately people often buy into stereotypes that guys are always sex hungry and why would they possibly not want to do it? This is not only false but also the idea that all men are controlled by their penises above all else is a dangerous idea to perpetuate for both genders sake. It leaves women who are turned down by their boyfriends wondering what’s up and men feeling like if they aren’t having (or wanting) a lot of sex there’s something wrong with them.

Boys and girls, the key is communication. If everyone can be as clear as possible about what they want and don’t want then navigating the grey areas of consent will be easier for everyone. And obviously, if someone’s telling you to back off – listen! Assume everyone means what they are saying!

Keep safe everyone!