We live in a day where relationships are constantly being advertised across all forms of social media. People are constantly tweeting, Instagraming, and making every aspect of their relationship public to their followers. But what affect is that having on relationships and the way we handle them.
People constantly are posting pictures of their significant others, tweeting about them, and professing love all across the various forms of social media. Which is fine, but people tend to judge relationships purely based off of what they see. How often have you questioned whether or not "so and so" are together because you haven't seen a post of them together for a while? Or what about when one person posts angrily on social media because of an argument or mistake? You get a glimpse into their personal life and automatically assume, "Oh, things must not be going great." It is mind-boggling to me that people post every aspect of their relationship to some public forum. Sure, naturally you spend a lot of time together, but posting every good and then show-boating the bad 24/7 is a little bit excessive. Outing your significant other's every flaw does nothing but make things immensely worse. The whole world doesn't need to know that he leaves the toilet seat up or maybe he texted his ex from high school one night. Whatever. That is business between the two of you, not you two and all of your followers. Come on.
There are also instances where people start comparing the success of their own relationship based on what they see. It happens all the time. People talk and you can hear the twang of jealousy erupting when they talk. I do not even want to know how many arguments have been started because people are judging their personal relationship based off of the things other people are doing for their significant other. Then, someone posts about it telling the world how great their person is. Then everyone can take that opportunity to see that something nice was done for a friend, now where is their nice gesture. It puts an unrealistic pressure on relationships all across the board. Instead of being focused on the successes or downfalls of your relationship, people spend more time viewing their relationship from an advertising perspective. A relationship isn't an opportunity to practice your marketing skills, it is something you and your significant other are sharing. Posting because you and your significant other did something fun or unique or just because is fine, but when the relationship starts being based around those social media ventures is when there are issues. You do not need to post a #mcm or #wcw every week, but if you're feeling extra loving, then do your thing.
You and your significant others relationship is just that, between the two of you. Now it seems like social media is an arguing point for all relationships. How many of you know someone who has total access to all of their significant other's social media? Where in the world is the trust in that? You see memes on Facebook all the time about hiding phones from one another, boys liking other girls instagram posts, and snapchat nightmares. If this is the foundation of your relationship and the reason things are going well or falling apart, then you are just plain doing it wrong.
The publicity of relationships these days is taking away from the love an intimacy of a relationship. Social media should be used to update people on fun or unique things you've got going on in your life, not to advertise the negatives qualities of your significant other or to start comparing relationships. Social media is meant to be a fun pastime, not central point of a functioning relationship.
