How To: Stop Friends from Asking You What Your "Relationship Status" Is on Facebook

Facebook rolled out a new feature that lets your friends ask you about your current relationship status. This is great feature if you use Facebook for finding hookups, but if you use it mostly to connect with family and friends, a bunch of questions about your dating status can get annoying real quick.

Now, there is no on/off switch for the "Ask" button, so you have to know how this feature works in order to hide it from your profile.

Who Can See the "Ask" Button?

Currently, only friends can see the "Ask" button next to your "Relationship Status," and only if it's blocked from their eyes. If you have "Only Me" selected for privacy, then all of your friends can see the "Ask" button.

And from what I can tell, there is no limit to how many times the same person can ask you about your relationship. Once you ignore their request, they can ask another one. If you ignore it again, they can ask it again. And so on. They can also cancel their request and submit a new one.

That could get annoying real quick. I tested it out by requesting—and getting officially "Ignored"—more than 15 times, and at no time did Facebook give me an option to stop them from over-asking.

Method #1: Go Public

The number one way to get rid of the "Ask" button is to simply go public with your relationship status. Set it to either "Public", "Friends", or choose specifics in "Custom", and no one you share the status with will be able to bug you with dating questions.

Of course, if you don't want everyone knowing your romantic escapades, or lack thereof, just put something else. Be sly about it. If you're single, say you're in a relationship, if you're in a relationship, say you're single, and if you're married, say it's complicated.

Just don't choose the "---" option, as that'll bring the "Ask" right back.

Method #2: Restrict Their Access

If you know they're going to cause issues for you, but you don't want to downright block them, you can add them to your restricted list. In this list, they can still see your profile, but only the content that you make totally public, and that's it.

In the "Blocking" section in your settings, click on "Edit", then select "Friends" in the drop-down menu. Then either select or search for potential offenders, click on them, and select "Finish".

This will prevent them from seeing the "Ask" button until you remove restrictions from them.

All of these info/tips applies to all of the other personal information you're keeping secret from everyone, like your work, school, current city, etc. These "Ask" buttons aren't as new as the relationship status one, but still could be annoying in the long run.

And these are pretty much the only options you have besides blocking or unfriending them. If it comes down to that, go ahead, but it would be a lot nicer if Facebook just let us choose whether or not we want the "Ask" button active or not.