Post, Tweet, Love: Romance and Social Media

MANILA, Philippines - Andi is a radio disc jockey, while GP is a restaurateur, club owner and an executive at a real estate firm;  Kai is a writer, while Roopak is an IT expert; Sarah and Sean are both entrepreneurs; Laurie and Thomas are also both website founders.

Four couples. Continents and time zones apart. Their stories began differently and yet, somehow, along the way, social media stepped in and voila, they have found their way to or are finding their way to what seems to be wedded bliss.

Their love stories began and developed on social media.

This is nothing new of course. Even before social media, online dating sites have been aplenty. And even before the internet,  pen pals were known to eventually become lovers.

The popularity of social media, however, has given many another avenue to look for partners or even hook ups. This  is not surprising given that even Geneva-based think tank World Economic Forum cited that there are 1.2 billion users of social media all over the world.

The popularity of finding love or developing a relationship on social media is obvious. Newspapers and news websites have devoted a number of articles reporting about this trend.

 Although, it only has 71 likes, there's  a Facebook page about meeting their husband/wife on social media. A Google search on meeting their partner on Facebook turned up 142 million results. A search meanwhile on meeting their partner on Twitter showed 131 million results. Who knows about Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, and Reddit?

Urban Trend

Louie Benedict Ignacio, a sociology professor at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, said courtship and dating on social media is largely an "urban" trend.

"Not even half of the Filipinos have access to the internet," he said.

However, he observes that the popularity of social media has encouraged Filipinos to become more "passionate and vocal" about their feelings.

Although, Ignacio said social media could be considered a "game-changer" in courtship and developing a relationship, it is not its presence that leads its users to pursue a relationship or look for a partner.

"Before the internet, we had letters. And then we had phones, texting became popular. Social media, however, changed all that. Now we have real-time communication, " he said.

What say you, singletons?

But are single Filipinos really willing to find love and develop a relationship  on and through social media?

PhilStar.com interviewed a study group of single, career-driven individuals in their 20s and 30s about this. Of the group, only one is in a relationship.

Three persons in the group - a male and two females - said they don't feel that they would be willing to engage in courtship on social media.

"Our willingness to be engaged in virtual relationships can only be measured by the level of interest we have towards the parties concerned," said the male, who works in an international organization.

The females, meanwhile, said they're more cautious in using social media especially when unknown persons send them messages or flirt with them.

"It really depends on the person who is communicating with you," said the female who works in a law firm in Makati.

Then there is another male, a graduate student, who says that he is open to courtship and dating on and through social media.

"I may not be comfortable with social media, but what if someone I like is open to courtship on social media? I need to adjust. And who's to say there's only one way to find love?" he said.

Then there are those in the middle: The third female in the group revealed that as she engages in online games, some of her social media friends are from this group.

"Some guy friends from online games are quite flirtatious. I accept their friend requests and sometimes I reply to them. Sometimes we become friends in real life. If friendship happens through social media, why not romance?" she said

The last male in the group, who works for a foreign publication, said that he is also open on dating on social media .At some point, however, he would insist that "they meet in person" and get to know each other better.

“Liking” everything about you

A Thought Catalog article titled "Love in the Time of Facebook" perhaps best captures courtship and dating on social media.

The author says that she literally wants to "like" every single thing that her guy, who is not yet her boyfriend, posted on Facebook. She also revealed that she reads his Twitter account to find out what he's been doing when they haven't talked in a little while.

"But there isn’t anyone I like more than you. I don’t care who sees us ‘liking’ everything about each other. I almost want to change my privacy settings to ‘public’ so that even people I don’t know can see us ‘liking’ everything about each other.

"I wish Facebook let you just ‘like’ individual people, like not elements of their profile or their updates or photos, just them. I would click ‘like’ on you every day," the author concluded.