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What we are talking about here is nothing less than a new means of symbolising relationship, and new methods of constructing a romantic identity: the virtual affair, the untagged husband, the status-update-parcelled-out self. As Lucy observes, “I still find myself ‘self-tweeting’. Every little thing that happens has the potential to go public, and it is a game to find a concise, witty way to make it viral. I find myself thinking someone looks attractive and will be like, ‘Lucy is: blushing because the boy next to her just looked over.’”

Not every twenty and thirtysomething feels themselves enmeshed. I meet a significant clutch who view online sharing with disdain: early adopters who have “gone back to text and e-mail” for the selectivity and degree of intimacy it entails. However, many are merely insouciant regarding technologies they have grown up with, means that now seem inseparable from their erotic end. “You were a student pre-texting, pre-networking?” people ask. “How did you have sex?”

Indelible images

For those of us who prefer to leave our pasts behind us, the repercussions of formative events being not merely etched on the psyche, but on the screen, seem particularly sinister. Relationships, statements, images – all will prove indelible, retrievable, inescapable. As one world-weary parent of a teenage son tells me, “I have lost track of the number of pictures I have seen of him mock-fellating his friends, and look forward to his attempts to become prime minister.”

And, yet, my inhibitions date me. The public playing out of our most intimate relationships, feelings and desires is surely one of the major fault lines of the new generation gap. Today’s young adults grew up grew up gawping as nobodies became somebodies via exposure of their “kebab” on Big Brother. They watched, they learnt, and they began to post, devoting 20 hours a week to a social life hovering between the virtual and the real.

And, in the process, the stiff upper lip was usurped by a constantly clicking finger. Thus, while the first question a time traveller summoned from 20 years ago might ask would be, “When did everyone get fat?”, the inquiry, “When did everyone abandon their discretion?” must surely follow.

The Rubicon, of course, has been crossed. Even those stung by the new openness continue to find its machinations addictive. “I think I would not now add ‘Lucy is in a relationship with…’ to my profile,” notes Lucy. “The pain of even that little crutch breaking is too much to bear. And, with the paranoia that Facebook can play on, one feels like a goldfish in a bowl, with everyone looking in at a distorted version of your life.

“However, growing up in an age of social networking – where unless it’s been documented online, it feels as if it never happened – I have a feeling I will have seriously to resist the urge. Putting something on Facebook can make you feel important, popular, significant. But, when you have some kind of wake-up call that shakes you from the reverie, you realise it’s all just so many pixels on a screen.”

Pixels with more permanence than some of the relationships they depict.

All names have been changed

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