Have you ever gone a period of time without posting pictures of your significant other and suddenly you start getting questions about whether you're still together or not? Or how about if you go a while without posting to your Instagram or Snapchat story and then start to get self-conscious that people will think you have no life? This is what the digital age has done to us. We constantly feel the need to keep up appearances through media in order to prove ourselves in the social world. It's so easy to get caught up in the realm that is social media, but at some point you need to bring yourself back into reality and realize that social media isn't always what it seems.

We all know those couples who feel the need to post about their significant other CONSTANTLY. And while it's great to show the occasional appreciation, if you feel the need to constantly document your every move on social media, it almost begs the question: are they really trying to convince their partner that they love them, or are they trying to convince the rest of the world, and ultimately themselves? Social media has a unique way of distorting reality from fiction. It creates unrealistic expectations and causes you to doubt your own, perfectly fine relationship. You find yourself wondering, "If my significant other didn't bring me flowers today do they really love me? Is my relationship as happy as theirs?". But what people fail to realize half of the time is that even though that picture perfect couple may look happy on media, that says nothing about what their relationship is truly like when they're face to face with each other. Instagram and other social medias make it entirely too easy to manipulate your posts to make your life look entirely like it's something it's not. I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather have my partner confess their love for me in person or with a handwritten note, rather than posting it on their Snap story or on an Instagram post.

Something that I have noticed from my experiences is that the people who feel the need to post the most about their relationships on media are the people who are the most unhappy within themselves and their relationships. It's almost as if they are trying to put up a façade for the rest of the world so that they can mask their true feelings. Don't let media deceive you- you never know what's going on behind closed doors and the couple that you envy so bad might not be as happy as they make it seem.

A social media post doesn't define your life or your relationships. I know that some of my most fun and happiest moments weren't documented at all. I was too busy trying to be present and live in the moment that I didn't think to stop and take a Snap of what was going on. If you are truly in the moment, odds are, posting and taking pictures will be the last thing on your mind. The only thing that you will have to remember it by is your own memories and the feeling of how happy it made you- the way it should be.