Every time I get on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, I see at least one picture about being a crazy girlfriend. Pictures like this:

These memes have become the norm on social media and have been teaching our new generation of girls (and boys) that being possessive and suffocating is the way you show love. We are teaching out future generations to search for love in obsession, mistrust, and abuse.

This could not be further from the truth.

By bragging about being possessive like this, we are teaching the new generation that in order to love someone, you have to suffocate them. And let me tell you this:

There is so much wrong with this new norm.

I don't prove I love my fiance by going through his phone and freaking out on him every time he mentions another female. I don't prove I love him by telling him he can't go out with his friends because I want to hang out with him. I don't prove I love him by blowing up his phone when he's with his friends. I don't prove I love him by telling him who he can and can't hang out with.

I prove I love him by trusting him.

I prove I love him by not making him ask my permission to go out with the guys. I prove I love him by not caring when he goes out with his friends. I prove I love him by not demanding every ounce of his attention. I prove I love him by not caring that he has female friends and coworkers that he see's almost as often as he see's me. I prove I love him by understanding when we spend some time apart because school or work is swamping him.

Telling today's youth that obsession is equivalent to love is a dangerous rhetoric. We are not only teaching our youth to ignore signs of emotional abuse, we are teaching them to embrace it.

We are raising an entire generation to think that being crazy, mistrustful, and obsessive is "cute" when it's not. We are teaching our youth that mental abuse, emotional abuse, and gaslighting are normal in a "healthy" relationship. We are normalizing physical abuse as a part of this "I'm crazy but I love you" narrative.

I am best friends with a girl that my fiance dated long before me. She is going to be my bridesmaid. And everyone tells me I'm too trusting, but I am of the opinion that I am trusting enough. My fiance has given me absolutely no reason to be mistrustful of him in our almost 4 years together. SO many people think trust issues are these cute little quirks when they are actually toxic behaviors.

I am not an obsessive, possessive, psycho girlfriend, and I'm okay with that. I refuse to buy into the belief that to love my man, I have to own him.