Reader, I Married Her

Ever since I joined Facebook, I've been looking forward to the day I change my relationship status. The trouble is, I've never had a legitimate reason to. So, like a ship that had ran aground, my status remained lodged in the same spot, in perpetual singlehood.

I'm not particularly unhappy about being single, mind you. I just happen to like that little candy-colored heart that precedes each coupling news. (Breakups used to appear with a broken heart, but Facebook eventually pulled the plug on that, probably because people complained that they don't like to announce the end of a relationship with such a conspicuous symbol.)

So I watched with a tinge of envy as my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and random strangers who befriended me after a Scrabble game cycle through various phases of coupling and uncoupling:

• (Pink heart) X went from "single" to "in a relationship."
• (Pink heart) Y went from "in a relationship" to "it's complicated."
  
• (Pink heart) A is now "in a relationship" with B.
  
• (Pink heart) Z went from "married" to "in an open relationship."
  

So one day, I broadcast my status as, "I'm tempted to change my Facebook relationship status from 'single' to 'married' for 24 hours just to freak out some of my friends."

I soon got flooded with comments: "Name one of your male friends for true Hijinks," one suggested. "Well, now that you've told us about it, you've lost a bit of the surprise factor," another pointed out. Still, most of them wrote me, both privately and publicly, to say, "Do it!"

"The thing is, I need to be married to someone to be convincing," I explained my dilemma.

"Alright, you can be married to me," consented Frankie, a dimpled Iowan girl I befriended on Facebook but had never met in person.

In her profile pic, she cocked an oversize suade cowboy hat over a delicate head. The pair of knee-high boots she was straddling made her look like Calamity Jane, with a disarming smile. Not a bad wife to have for a day, I thought.

After ascertaining that she was, indeed, willing to undergo an impromptu Facebook marriage, I changed my status to, "Married to Frankie," linking our profiles together as other couples do.

Apparently I couldn't just decide whom I wanted to marry. Facebook wanted my alleged spouse, Frankie, to approve my status change.

"I think you need to confirm our marriage," I told her.
"Hang on," she said.

Two minutes later, we were married on Facebook.

"It's official now," I said.
"Awesome," she said. "Where are you going for honeymoon?"
"I think we need to figure out how to break it to our parents first," I said.

My phony Facebook marriage, which lasted a little more than 24 hours, didn't prompt as many congratulatory messages as I'd anticipated. So a day later, Frankie and I quietly parted ways.

One week later, while out on a stroll with my friend Dina, I decided to stop for a cup of Latte at my local Starbucks. I noticed a familiar face, Markus, a neighbor who also happened to be my Facebook friend. Before we exchanged any pleasantries, he blurted out:

"Hey, congratulations!"
"Um, thanks," I said, "for what?"
"Didn't you just get married?," he asked.

Dina and I started giggling (she was fully aware of my online prank).

"That was just a joke," I started to explain. "I just did it to see how my friends would react."
"Really," said Markus, "you mean the green card, the INS, the immigration, everything was a joke?"

Now I was the one taken aback.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I heard you married someone so she could get a green card," he said, "or was it the other way around?"
"No, that's not me," I said. "I think you're confusing me with someone."
"No, no, I don't think so," he said. "I heard it from several different poople."
"All I did was change my Facebook status from 'single' to 'married' -- that's all I did," I said.
"I swear you got married," he said.

Neither Dina nor I could convince Markus that I was, as I had always been, still single. It seems somewhere in Twilight Zone, in some unknown alternative Facebook universe, I was -- and, in all likelihood, still am -- married to someone from overseas in need of a green card.

Whoever she is, I hope she's as cute as Frankie.

(For Frankie, for being a good sport!)