For years women have been portrayed as the romantic and needy one in the relationship and for a long time women accepted this, but we are slowly moving away from this stereotype. The internet is full of memes that portray the various types of relationships and the majority of them portray the female as being the needy and overly attached partner. However, after much pondering, I have come to the conclusion that it is not always the case in today's society. There has been a shift in the relationship roles and there seems to be a greater increase of the male being needy and more attached than the female.
What is being heard from women is that they do not have time for relationships because they are so absorbed in their careers or education. This, when in a relationship, can lead to a variety of things and the results can be quite surprising. Looking at it this way, we start to see males demand that their female counterpart spend more time with them as they constantly nag about their need to go through that "honeymoon" phase in the relationship, which basically consist of constant swooning and adoration of each other.
Women are slowly breaking the stereotype of needing to constantly be reassured of the love and affection of their partner. What is being seen now is that women are prioritizing themselves and their goals and aspirations, in which being in a relationship does not take president. It is slowly becoming the norm for women to take on a more masculine approach to relationships in which they are the ones providing the affection rather than the ones asking for it.
This new approach to relationships can be very beneficial to both women and men, mainly because it teaches both that a relationship does not revolve around needing another person, but instead about learning to be your own individual. It pushes the idea of partnership and not that of a caterer, but aside from this, it exposes men to the feeling of having to be needed and paid attention to, which is something women have often been criticised about. The roles have been flipped and now it is the males turn to experience what women have been assumed to experience.
The internet, however, has not seemed to catch up with this new evolution of the typical relationship, for they are still stuck in the, "women are needy," phase, partially because how funny would it be to see a meme of a needy man. Just imagine instead of a woman hanging around the waist of a man it would be the other way around and the man would be hanging from the waist of the woman. I challenge the internet to come up with memes that portray this type of relationship and that encourages them to be relationship goals so that it becomes a norm and like that, our society can turn away from one more stereotype attributed to women.
