Facebook Divorce and Other Matters of the Virtual Heart

I went back home after teaching on 
Monday. My wife looked angry. This is never a good sign. We had some 
small talk. Then, she asks me a question that shocked me… “why are you listed as single on Facebook?” Huh?!? I rush to my laptop to check my status
, and sure enough, I was listed as single. My birthday changed to 
January 1st, and I was no longer assign a sex. So, I was 
asexual? I know what my wife was thinking. In virtual cheating, one 
of the signs always listed is the non-relationship status on a 
social networking site. The only item I changed on my status was my 
political views, and it seemed to reset all of the rest of my 
biographical data. In essence, I lost all of the signifiers that 
separate myself from other users on Facebook. Sure, I had my degrees, and I had a class (rank) listed. But, all of the additional significant 
information was removed from my profile. I spent five minutes retyping in the 
information and tried to assure my wife that it was a glitch in the 
system. Her birthday also changed to January 1st, but she 
didn’t lose any other data on her profile. A single glitch can mean 
more than a loss of a string of data. It can also represent the 
temporary loss of identity in the virtual realm or severe trouble in 
the real world.