I’ve been with my significant other for just about three years now and known each other for seven. Even now after knowing each other for so many years and being in a long distance relationship, we don’t follow each other on social media (with the exception of Snapchat which we both don’t use much for posting). When we first started going out it felt very odd for me to not know who he was following on Instagram, or what kind of pictures he was posting, whose pictures he was liking; this was purely because I’m jealous and slightly territorial. We never really spoke about not being friends on social media besides me trying to steal his phone and accept my friend request. It has never been a problem because despite my jealousy I trust him.

After being together for three years I think I’ve come to realize just how toxic it would be if we were friends on social media because I would feel the constant urge to be checking on him, which I realize is not healthy for any relationship. I’ve also taken into account that I’m a private person and don’t exactly want others knowing about him or what he’s doing by being able to look him up through tagged pictures. I love the anonymity we are able to share and that our social lives can remain on social media and not disturb our real-life relationship. That’s not to say that we won’t speak about things we see or share on social media but it doesn’t define our relationship or have the ability to create any kind of fights between us.

I think it’s important for relatively new relationships to maintain this same kind of privacy. In this day and age where news travel so quickly and people love to know everyone’s business, it’s always nice to have your own thing going on in the background that no one needs to know about. It’s also a great way of learning to trust your significant other and teach yourself to have a relationship that doesn’t exist purely through commenting on each other’s pictures and likes. You don’t need to know what they're doing all the time; even if you do feel the need to know, it’s 2017 and they are always a text or phone call away.

That’s not to say that you should go and unfollow your significant other and miraculously all your problems will be solved, but take into consideration just how much of your relationship is being governed by social media, if at all. If it is, maybe it’s time to take back the reigns and unplug.