Pretty much everyone's relationships seem perfect on social media, with the exception of those few weird couples from high school that overshared every little detail (I'm pretty sure every high school had those couples, didn't they?).
That's the whole goal, though: we want everything to appear perfect to the public eye.
From selfies to pictures of vacations and food, to pictures with our friends, to pictures of our relationships -- we want all of it to look good. We want every one of our followers to think we are truly "living our best lives." While we're personally trying to frame ourselves as perfect, we're also drinking in everyone else's ideas of "perfect."
This is a huge problem when it comes to romance.
No one wants anyone to know that their relationship is rocky or less than perfect, and that's honestly for the better. Oversharing can kill relationships.
However, the result is we only see the very best of everyone else's relationships. Open Instagram and you see picture perfect couples who never do anything but take selfies together and go on romantic getaways. Open Twitter and you see photo sets of all of the thoughtful gifts everyone but you seems to be getting, and all of the cute text messages all the boyfriends except your own are sending. Open Facebook and you see all of your high school friends getting engaged at 22 while you're both still trying to figure your lives out.
It is SO important, for your own mental health and for the health of your relationship, to focus on yourselves and not what you see from everyone on social media.
Social media is meant for us to share the best of our lives and stay connected. Of COURSE you're not going to see the bad or the ugly on social media. Rather than stepping back and acknowledging this, we fixate on the perfection we see online and set that as our standard. We expect a Twitter-perfect, Insta-perfect relationship at all times when what we need is a relationship that is us-perfect.
Remember that every couple fights. Remember that a lot of couples break up, but you won't see that plastered on your Instagram feed. Remember that every person and every relationship is unique -- just because your friend's boyfriend likes to write her poems every night, doesn't mean your more reserved boyfriend isn't just as sweet and wonderful.
Don't project the unrealistic standard of social media perfection onto your relationship. Embrace your relationship as it is and see the beauty in what you share with only one other person -- the world will never be able to see true love between two people in any amount of posts or pictures.
