#615. Making sure everyone online knows you’re married.

I recently realized that I’ve started dropping a certain phrase into my emails and Facebook comments. Side hugs? No. Razzle Dazzle? No. Leg drops 4-eva? No.

My phrase of choice is apparently, “My wife and I.”

When girls email me about Stuff Christians Like or comment on something I said on Twitter, I’ve noticed that I make a point of name dropping my wife.

Even if the email I get from someone just says, “Can you tell me about how you found your literary agent,” I am tempted to respond with, “Well my wife and I were talking one day about being married and in love and we’re married, and we still have tickle fights and split milkshakes with two straws that bend in the shape of a heart and then I found a literary agent. The end.”

It’s not like I’m getting inappropriate emails. It’s not like my response needs to extinguish some “you’re so awesome” blazing fire of words. I just feel compelled to let the online world know that I’m married.

And I’m not the only one. I’ve noticed several readers who do the same thing and I think that’s great. The Internet is littered with wounded and broken marriages that allowed a seed of “emotional over share” to blossom into a full blown affair of disastrous proportions.

I think that I can also take this to ridiculously egotistical proportions, essentially believing that “When that person of the opposite sex asked me if I liked the new laptop bag I mentioned on Twitter, they were probably trying to hit on me. Better remind them I’m happily married. Probably should send them a photo of my wedding ring.” That’s a bit much and if you send me a short email someday, I promise I won’t copy and paste an “well my wife and I” into the response automatically. But overall, I’m cool with the “look at me, I’m married” approach to social networking. I do have a problem though.

You see, I’m very competitive. I don’t want to kind of tell people I’m married online, I want to be the very best at doing that. Only that’s such a minor, obscure thing to be competitive about that no one in their right mind would ever come up with an adequate, sanctioned in 17 states, method of scoring who the winner is. Fortunately, I am not in my right mind.

The “I want everyone online to know I’m married” scorecard.

1. You and your spouse share an email address. = +1 point

2. You and your spouse share an email address and the address makes that obvious with a name like theacuffs@yahoo.com = +2 points

3. You and your spouse share an email address and the address makes that wicked obvious with a name like JennyandJonaresoooooinlove@yahoo.com = +3 points

4. You and your spouse share an email address and the address makes that wicked, ultra obvious with a name like Markswife@yahoo.com or Lindashusband@gmail.com = +4 points

5. You sign off on all emails with the phrase, “happily married,” = +1 point

6. Emails? What are you talking about? You don’t write emails to the opposite sex. = +2 points

7. Your profile photo on facebook is just a close up of your ring finger. = +1 point

8. Your profile photo on facebook is a picture of you and your spouse hugging = +2 points

9. Your profile photo on facebook is a picture of your wedding day = + 3 points

10. Your profile photo on facebook is a picture of you and your husband hugging while he cleans a shotgun. = +4 points

11. Your tweets on Twitter are actually 123 characters long instead of the standard 140 because each one, regardless of the message starts with the phrase, “my hot wife and I” = + 1 point

12. The only activity you list on facebook is “being in love with my husband.” = + 1 point

13. The only interests you list are “spending time with my wife” = +2 points

14. For favorite book you listed “The 5 Love Languages” = +3 points

15. For favorite TV show you just got lazy and replied, “I’m married.” = +4 points

16. For quotations you skipped the standard CS Lewis route and wrote, “Will you marry me?” “Yes.” – “What my husband said to me six delicious years ago.” = +5 points

17. Your wedding happened six years ago but yet you keep updating facebook with fresh wedding photos from the archives of your love = +3 points

18. You use your facebook status updates as a running, “No I love you more, silly!” game between you and your spouse. = + 4 points

19. Your tweets are just a running countdown of days left to key dates, “Me and my hott wife will have been married for 2 years in roughly 117 days!” = +5 points

20. When you got married you “retired” your individual facebook or myspace profiles and opened up a new one called “PamelaFrankSmith” = + 2 points

21. You opened up a shared facebook or myspace account but gave yourselves a nickname, morphing your two names and ultimately settling on, “FramelaSmith.” = +10 points

Wow, looking at that list makes me realize I do a pretty poor job of showcasing my marital status online. I’m coming in at a solid 2 points right now.

How about you?

If you’re married, are you crushing me in the letting people online know about it game?

If you’re single, do any of your married friends play this game?

What item of “look at me online world I’m married!” is missing from this list?

p.s. If you’re single and this post made you want to throw up at least a little bit, always remember there’s a post about surviving church as a single.