We all are guilty of Facebook stalking, especially that person we’ve been crushing on. Some people like to keep their lives quite private on Facebook and this leaves us wondering what that person’s relationship status is. This is necessary to see if one should pursue one’s crush or move on since they are not available. Facebook has come up with its new "Ask’ feature in order to make it easier to find out someone’s relationship status when the user keeps it hidden.
For some it might be very awkward to specifically ask a particular user for their relationship status without making one’s intentions blatantly obvious. For others this might be a bold move that they would be up for, they don’t like to beat around the bush and just cut to the chase.
How does it work? Well it happens behind closed doors really. It does not show up on newsfeeds (that might be one less embarrassment), but shows up as a private message. If the relationship status is hidden, the "Ask’ tab appears beside it. Once you click on the tab, a message box pops up saying "Let (X) know why you’re asking for his/her relationship status’, beneath that you write what your intention is and press "Send Request’. The Facebook user in question then receives the request. On opening the request, a drop down menu appears. If they desire to share their status with you, they can select their respective relationship status. This basically means, that their relationship status remains private and is only disclosed to the user requesting it.
This feature is a fast way of finding a date on Facebook. With the market of online dating being successful and Facebook having a huge user base, some people may pose the question "why wasn’t this feature introduced before?’
The "Ask’ feature is also available for other information, such as email addresses, home addresses, and phone numbers. This pretty much makes it easier for any average Facebook user to become a pro-stalker.