When you use your Facebook status to complain about your love life you aren’t helping anything. Yeah, Facebook can be a place to share your thoughts and feelings in addition to news about your life or hilarious videos of your friends doing stupid things, but this is also one of the major tools to manage your self-image. You’ve got to be more thoughtful than putting just anything in your head out there for everyone else to see.

You know you’ve seen it before. People posting frustrated and depressed statuses like

• Why does it always seem like everyone else is in a happy relationship and I’m not?
• Another Saturday night alone. #TeamSingle

Hopefully you aren’t guilty of it already. If so, this is where it ends.

Here are the two things that will happen when you post a status like this:

• Cheap compliments like, “you just haven’t found the right girl yet,” or “any girl would be lucky to have you as a boyfriend.” Usually these come from relatives or people who have already put your in their Friend Zone.
• You look a little desperate. People put out last minute calls for a ride to work or something to do this weekend on their timelines. If you allow random messages to look like your best hope of finding a girlfriend people might find you somewhat pathetic.

It’s totally normal to feel bummed out about being single but instead of broadcasting it to all the corners of the internets try this:

• Tell a friend. A real flesh-and-blood friend. Someone you could talk to on the phone or face-to-face. This way there’s no written record, you get all of your feelings out rather than one line of text, and you receive honest meaningful uplifting thoughts from someone who knows you.
• Stay relaxed in front of others. People aren’t attracted to sad and lonely. This doesn’t mean put on a fake smile and act like everything’s great all the time. Just try to stay positive and optimistic. When you’re open to something new or good happening you’ll put the vibes out into the world necessary to make it happen.