It is no surprise that our generation loves social media and the attention that goes along with it. Showing off your friends, your boyfriend, your girlfriend or even your dog can usually get you more likes, and thus more attention. But this is the crippling problem: when people solely post pictures of their boyfriend or girlfriend for selfish and attention-seeking reasons. Flaunting your passionate and romantic love for one another is awesome, but not when it’s being shoved down my throat (and everyone else who follows you) every 30 minutes. Love is amazing and you should want to show your significant other off, and by all means do! But please, do it sparingly.
It is expected of you, or so people think, to post a “Man Crush Monday” or a “Woman Crush Wednesday” every week on some social media platform, but really -- and I mean really -- that’s not the case. Don’t get me wrong, if you are truly feelin’ the love with your significant other and wanted to post something about them, sure, go ahead. But when it becomes excessive, we have a problem. I am a firm believer in keeping some parts of your life private, and I think that some people truly don’t believe in or know what privacy is anymore. It is common for people to purposely call their boyfriend or girlfriend out on social media for wronging them in some way, or even having an argument online, but is that really needed? I understand you are in the heat of the moment and want to call them out, but remember, hundreds of other people can see that exact same post. So please spare me and the rest of your followers that horrible cringing motion when we scroll along and see it. It’s not fun for either of us...trust me.
Now, let me clear something up. I am not a cynical or pessimistic person. I do truly enjoy the idea of love and all that, but I think the relationship should be and stay between the people involved, not the individuals and all of their followers. One of the most influential ways people show the love they have for their partner is with these “relationship goals” tweets and posts. We have become increasingly hungry and materialistic, hoping that our significant other got us a new phone for Valentine's Day instead of a handwritten card.
We want to be depicted in the most flawless way possible in order to show everyone we're still happily dating after five years and secretly want everyone to whisper “relationship goals” when scrolling through our posts. We are more concerned with how society depicts a couple rather than the couple themselves.
Ultimately, these “relationship goals” create unrealistic expectations of what a healthy relationship should be. There is no one way to define a “healthy” and “stable” relationship (and believe me, I am not an expert in this field at all), but these posts tend to focus on the materialistic values set forth onto the relationship. These “goals” tend to the blur the lines of understanding what a real and raw relationship has to offer, as compared to that one couple you follow on Facebook who buys each other gifts and flowers every other day.
We need to understand this shift in relationship qualities and get to the root of the problem, whatever that may be. (Need for attention? Insecurity? You name it.) We attract those into our lives that serve us higher, and the attention-seeking boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t really fit into that prototype. So focus on appreciating your significant other in person instead of behind your brightly lit phone or computer screen.
We don’t need “relationship goals” and we shouldn’t want “relationship goals,” because to whose standards are they anyways?
