Relationship Codes
Some hopefully practical dating advice
Rumor has it a lot of people lie about their relationship status while dating. This causes a lot of problems for people who don’t lie about their relationship status because of all the suspicion. I can tell you from experience, in what is probably peak first world problems, that getting your wikipedia page updated to say that you’re divorced can be super annoying. (Yes I’m divorced and single).
Here is a suggestion for how to help remedy this1. People can be put a relationship code in their public profiles. This is a bit like Facebook relationship status, but more flexible and can go anywhere and its meaning is owned by the people instead of Meta. The form of a relationship code can be ‘Relationship code: XYZ’ but it’s cuter and more succinct to use an emoji, with 💑 (‘couple with heart’) being the most logical2. Here are a few suggestions for what to do with this, starting with the most important and to the less common:
💑 single: This means ‘There is nobody else in the world who would get upset about me saying I’m single in this profile’ in a way which is publicly auditable. Proactively having this in one’s profile is a bit less effective than getting asked by someone to post and and then doing so because some people make extra profiles just for dating. Some people suck. For that reason this is especially effective in profiles which are more likely to be tied to the real person like Linkedin, but unfortunately posting relationship status there is a bit frowned on.
💑 abcxyz: The code abcxyz can be replaced by anything. The idea is that someone gives the other person a code which they randomly came up with to post. This is a way of auditably showing that you’re single but not actively courting anybody else. Appropriate for early in a relationship, even before a first date. Also a good way of low-key proving you are who you claim to be.
💑 in a relationship with abcxyz: Shows that a relationship is serious enough to announce publicly
💑 married to abcxyz: Means that a relationship is serious enough to let it impact your taxes
💑 poly: Shows that you’re in San Francisco
💑 slut: Probably a euphemism for being a sex worker
💑 No: “People are constantly creeping into my DMs and I’m not interested in you.”
A lot of people seem to not appreciate dating advice coming from, ahem, my demographic. I’m posting this because I think it’s a good idea and am hoping someone more appropriate than me becomes a champion for it.
There are variants on this emoji which disambiguate the genders of the people and give other skin tones. It’s probably a good idea for everyone to make at least one of the people match their own skin tone. People may choose variants to indicate their gender/skin tone preferences of partners. People giving challenge codes may also request that the emoji variant be updated to indicate that the person is okay with publicly expressing openness to dating someone which matches them. Nobody should ever take offense at what someone they aren’t in a relationship with uses as their relationship code emoji. Peoples preferences are a deeply personal thing and none of your business.