Falling in 'love' on Facebook

I thought I'd address this issue after a couple of personal experiences, some of the things I've read and some stories others have shared with me.  Every time I hear of someone falling in 'love' with someone on Facebook, I feel the need to make istikhaara between smacking my head or recommending the person gets out more.

Let me be clear about the type of people I'm addressing here before somebody comments with: "But brother, I found my wife on Facebook and we've been happily married for 15 years! So ha! Take that", besides the fact that Facebook's only been around for 10 years, good for you.  This post is aimed at those who fall in 'love' with someone they have never seen in real life.  Forget seeing or knowing, they don't even know anyone who knows this person.  Many a times, they don't even live in the same country! And in some cases, they haven't even seen a photo of this person!

"Let's be clear, you haven't fallen in 'love' with this person, you've fallen in 'love' with their Facebook personality"

So let's breakdown what people fall in 'love' with about this person.  Let's be clear, you haven't fallen in 'love' with this person, you've fallen in 'love' with their Facebook personality and their Facebook personality is usually made up of the following:

- Their picture - The brother or sister uploads one super good photo of themselves and you instantly fall in love.  What you don't realise is that most of the time, you've actually fallen in love with the Instagram filter applied to this photo.

- The Qur'anic verses - "The brother quotes so many powerful Qur'anic verses masha'Allah! He must be a Hafidh." Quoting Qur'anic verses doesn't make somebody a hafidh, often, it makes them a very good copy-paster.  If you want somebody who's good at copy-pasting, marry them and you can both copy-paste Qur'anic verses together for the rest of your life.

- The inspirational quotes - "aaahh, her quotes melt my heart."  Riiiighttt and based on this, you expect every single sentence that comes out of her mouth after marriage to also melt your heart. I'll tell you what, a simple search on Google would also bring you quotes which will melt your heart, so why not consider Google instead?

- Their love for kids - "The brother absolutely loves his niece, he's going to be an awesome father."  Indeed... you worked that out from the 5 pictures he has with his niece.  "aaawww".

- Their knowledge - "He attends every single AlKauthar course, he must be close to becoming a scholar."  What you don't see is that he spends 70% of his time at the registration desk dipping Digestives in to his cup of Lipton and counting numbers.  This one deserves a: #verynicelogics hashtag.

The list could go on but I think you get the idea.  Then we have people who assume somebody is in 'love' with them because:

- "She likes every single status of mine. She MUST love me" - No, she just has too much time on her hands.

- "He accepted my friend request! Surely that's a sign." - And he also accepted 50 other friend requests from females, that indeed is a sign, but sadly not the one you're looking for.

- "She commented on my status about the importance of getting married. That must be a hint!" - It is a hint, she's sick of seeing your daily posts on marriage! In the words of Tabriz's most well-known son: #pleasetorefrain

Stop creating these false illusions in your heads brothers and sisters.  Do not ever think that a person's Facebook personality is always a true reflection of their real self.  Their Facebook personality is what they want you to see them as, their real personality might just shock you...

If after reading the above you still think you've found your Romeo or Juliet on Facebook, then for Allah's sake at least take the halal route and proceed.  Do not just stalk somebody's profile every single day and then say Astaghfirullah after staring at their picture for 5 minutes.

I personally know of 2 instances where people have gone as far as downloading pictures of somebody they think they've fallen in love with on Facebook and proudly sharing these with their friends.  Fear Allah.  I know of multiple instances where some people have sent friend requests to somebody they've fallen in 'love' with, waited a few day, realised their request hasn't been accepted, cancelled the request and sent it again.  Aaaaandd repeated the process many a times.  Who are you kidding?  Do you think a person doesn't realise your intentions when you do something like that?  If you really were just interested in the person's posts wouldn't you be content with just following them instead of trying your best to become 'friends' in the hope that they will see all the cryptic messages in your posts?

Stop messing around and cut to the chase! Brothers: Speak to your mother, sister or aunty and get them to talk to your Facebook Juliet.  Sisters: Get your wali involved straight away!  If you're serious, stop these childish games.  Haraam means could very well lead to a haraam end.  May Allah protect us all.