Can Facebook, like, legally marry people – like the captain of a ship?

by John Holbo on June 25, 2011

I haven’t logged onto Facebook in, like, 5 months. (So if you tried to friend me or poke me or whatever, and I didn’t respond, it’s nothing personal, man.) However, when I got a request to marry Belle Waring, I figured I might as well accept. Sudden and unexpected, to be sure. But what have I got to lose, marrying my own wife? To keep a short story short: reader, I married her!

I woke up this morning, in my own bed, beside my sleeping wife. It’s working out great. I am a devoted husband, with no pending invites to stray. Now I don’t need to log onto Facebook for, like, 5 more months.

{ 22 comments }

1

Mrs Tilton 06.25.11 at 6:58 am

Mrs Tilton likes this

2

Antti Nannimus 06.25.11 at 7:57 am

Hey John,

Now you’ve finally done something that makes great good sense.

Have a nice life!
Antti

3

John Holbo 06.25.11 at 9:36 am

“Now you’ve finally done something that makes great good sense.”

I’m glad you think so. I don’t want people to get the idea that I acted in foolish haste. Before I clicked ‘confirm’ I counted on my fingers to make sure it wasn’t going to be some kinda crazy “I’m my own grandpa” type situation. But I was pretty sure. I mean, if a man can’t marry his own wife, who can he marry?

4

John Holbo 06.25.11 at 9:45 am

Also, I think I did the deed only hours before New York said ok to same sex marriage so, in the event that the institution of marriage collapsed at that point, I got in under the wire. If that makes a difference.

5

Hidari 06.25.11 at 1:18 pm

I am boycotting Facebook until it has a button for ‘is completely indifferent to’. I will then add everyone on Earth with this option. Except for my cat. Who I will marry.

6

P O'Neill 06.25.11 at 1:21 pm

As the song says, You’ve had too much to think/now you need a wife.

7

Miracle Max 06.25.11 at 1:31 pm

In the tv show “Big Love,” the protagonist has an affair with his own wife, which seems relevant.

8

Patrick 06.25.11 at 1:55 pm

This post is half a page long.

What have you done with the real John Holbo?

9

Stephen 06.25.11 at 2:47 pm

Posts like this make me wonder why I subscribe to Crooked Timber.

10

John Holbo 06.25.11 at 3:09 pm

“Posts like this make me wonder why I subscribe to Crooked Timber.”

Surely if you are wondering this now you must have already wondered it at some point in the past. Right?

11

Substance McGravitas 06.25.11 at 3:17 pm

I DEMAND A REFUND OF MY SUBSCRIPTION.

12

Scott 06.25.11 at 6:00 pm

I demand a subscription of my refund!!!!

All work and no jokes make John a dull blogger, don’tcha know?

13

Salient 06.25.11 at 6:10 pm

Also, I think I did the deed only hours before New York said ok to same sex marriage so, in the event that the institution of marriage collapsed at that point, I got in under the wire. If that makes a difference.

It might; I vaguely remember Belle positing that each person’s allowed one gay marriage and one straight marriage.

Also, “You have no more relationship requests” is pitch-perfect iambic pentameter, replacing “This computer is in use and has been locked” as my favorite instance of presumably unintentional yet verseworthy iambic in an automated computer message.

14

ben w 06.25.11 at 6:42 pm

I can only assume that this post has triggered a torrent of relationship requests for John.

15

Belle Waring 06.26.11 at 6:19 am

Somehow this didn’t get through last night:
“You have no more relationship requests”
I should very well think not!

16

Belle Waring 06.26.11 at 6:22 am

I believe my mother, brother, and sister have stipulatively become related to me under similar facebook auspices. That power which Aristotle thought was denied even and only to God, to change what is past, appears to have been given to Mark Zuckerberg.

17

yeliabmit 06.26.11 at 7:50 pm

My niece has added some of her FB friends as sisters. She has no natural (or even legally defined) sisters. I find this to be strange, and having the benefit of many years of changing friendships, suspect that time, increasing maturity, and drifting intimacy may eventually necessitate some de-sistering, which strikes me as equally strange. I wouldn’t even add my oldest friend, whom I have known since we were seven years old, as a “brother” — even though I think of him this way — mainly because of the awkward implications for the rest of our families, who have no say in such a thing.

18

Barry 06.26.11 at 7:55 pm

“Somehow this didn’t get through last night:
“You have no more relationship requests””

Belle Waring : “I should very well think not!”

Are you saying that you scraped the bottom of the husband barrel for John?
Were you being punished by the Sisterhood?

If he’s worth anything, all the other women want him, and now anytime he’s in NY state, he’s doubly attractive.

19

Down and Out of Sài Gòn 06.27.11 at 9:40 am

I think I’ve committed Facebook incest. I’m “married” to my wife, as is right and proper. However, her brother is down as my “brother” as well. The site has no “in-law” drop down values for family relationships as far as I can gather.

20

The Modesto Kid 06.27.11 at 6:25 pm

I spent a while as a relative of Emerson before he dropped me for some political incorrectitude.

21

candle 06.27.11 at 7:22 pm

You have no more relationship requests.
This person is in use and has been locked.
Facilities reserved for paying guests.

The power with which Facebook me invests
is more than mere religion could concoct:
you have no more relationship requests.

Nor is there anyone here who contests
your right to celebrate at the well-stocked
facilities reserved for paying guests.

A thousand hearts beat in a thousand chests:
“No longer must I suffer being mocked:
I have no more relationship requests!”

But our relationships are palimpsests;
or ledgers from which debits have been docked;
facilities reserved for paying guests.

For what is love but failing hidden tests,
and finding that the way is still unblocked?
You have no more relationship requests:
facility’s reserved for paying guests.

22

Salient 06.27.11 at 11:19 pm

…oh wow. candle is my new internet love. I should go try to make it Facebook official.

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