I know what you’re thinking and I know your reaction when I mention another commentary about Facebook. But before you roll your eyes and log back into your account, consider this: if you have 1,800 friends, why are you alone?

I realize it is presumptuous of me to ignorantly predict your reaction to Facebook, or assume that you are by yourself. But maybe what I can guess is that your response to that risqu’eacute; new post from some unknown person on your lover’s wall is enough to make you outraged. Don’t blame yourself – Facebook has not yet invented a “friends with benefits” relationship status to ward them off.

According to Wikipedia, a “casual relationship” is a term used to describe the physical and emotional relationship between two people who may have engaged in intimate behavior without necessarily demanding or expecting a more formal romantic relationship as a goal. Related terms are “pals with privileges,” an “extended hookup,” a “fling” or more simply, “friends with benefits.”

But what happens when all of a sudden this pattern of behavior changes and another girl or guy is added into the equation without your consent? It is not technically a break up. Therefore the excessive consumption of Ben ‘ Jerry’s and reruns of sad movies are not in the cards, and don’t expect your 1,800 friends to sympathize with your decision to check yourself into the heartbreak hotel either. After all, your status on Facebook never said “in a relationship.”

Although I do not have a Facebook account, I empathize with those who may feel discouraged or upset upon learning scandalous information they would have preferred not to have read.

I have personally witnessed my sister take a bottle of wine to bed with her in tears because some girl had the audacity to post messages implicative of an intimate relationship with the guy she had been casually dating. While this may be a dramatic example, the side effects of uncovering hurtful information may be enough to consider deactivating your account altogether.

While I realize I may be an exception to the rule as I do not have an account, I have learned the hard way that when it comes to boys I am attracted to, ignorance is bliss.

Take for example the attractive guy who periodically swipes my Husky card in exchange for my gym key. Do I know his name? No. Do I know where he’s from? No. Do I want to know who the beautiful girl is that’s most likely his girlfriend? No. Why, you ask? Because ignorance is bliss.

As far as I’m concerned, his name is anything other than the last few boys who I have tried to put behind me, he’s from some exotic location and he’s single.

Besides, if I really wanted to know more about somebody, I would certainly not exhaust my investigative skills on Facebook. If I wanted to know information about you, journalism has taught me how to find it. But don’t get ahead of yourself, because truthfully I’d prefer to enjoy the mystery.

Now some of you have probably set your coffee down and are about to turn the page, maybe wondering whether or not to check the status of your casual relationship by browsing wall posts. Perhaps some of you may even be wishing that you never read this commentary and been reminded how incriminating Internet information can be. Well like I said: ignorance is bliss.

-Rebecca Fenton is a middler journalism major.