We are the first generation to have social media be a part of our relationships. I don’t think some of us take notice of how much that affects our love lives. We feel the need to post about our partner to “show them off,” because if we don’t, we must not care about them as much as the ones who do post. When did a relationship status become how often or how a partner posts about the other on their social media accounts? Why should it matter how others perceive your relationship based off of your social media?

I never realized how badly social media can cause a relationship to crumble until I watched it happen to my past relationship. I thought I deserved the love everyone else was receiving from their partners. I re-tweeted and pinned all the “relationship goals” posts I wanted my boyfriend and I to be. I guess, in the end, I had asked too much of a 17-year-old boy. I never understood the problems social media caused until I was out of a relationship. When I was single I could see from an outsider’s point of view, and this is what I realized:

Those relationship posts we see and so desperately want to become our reality are posted by people who are not you. Those people usually have money, hence why they can afford fun dates, trips, and the jewelry their partners tweet about. Also, those couples are posting their best of the best moments and it probably took them 50 tries to get the right picture. The most important thing, though, is this: their relationship is not your relationship. These couples, more than likely, don’t have the same personalities as you, the same aspirations as you, nor do they fight like you. We break up over the littlest of things. “Why don’t you take pictures of me like those guys on Twitter do?” That one question then turns into a fight and the girl usually winds up feeling less loved than the girl whose boyfriend posted a picture. Just because you aren’t doing what couples in “relationship goals” posts are doing, or you aren’t seeing your partner post things like them, doesn’t mean you aren’t as loved as they are. When did this become the answer to whether a relationship is good or not? We need to stop trying to make these posts become our reality. Those couples are not you, never were, and never will be, so stop trying to be them. Enjoy the amazing relationship you are in and make your own relationship goals together.

Let’s love like we did before social media got the best of us.