It’s February, and you know what that means: Valentine’s Day. And what do we think of when we think of Valentine’s Day? Chocolates, flowers, date night and an overabundance of photos of couples. And while I would love to sit down and write about all the ways you should spoil your SO (or yourself) and the best ways to spend this Valentine’s Day, I can’t do it. Something has been bothering me lately on social media, and it’s the staggering rise in posts I see about how fun it is to be a “psycho girlfriend.” With hashtags like #wastehistime and memes about the second season of You running rampant, sometimes I feel like we go over the line of a joke (and don’t get me wrong, I love the jokes), and wander into an area closer to an unhealthy mindset about men and relationships. As I feminist myself I hate to admit it, but ladies, toxic femininity is a thing too, and we don’t want things to get there.
So, let’s talk about some of these trends. First, the “waste his time” hashtag. A quick google search gave me endless options. A Buzzfeed article gave me a compiled list of some of the most popular. And I’ll be the first to admit, some of them really are funny and harmless. I totally agree you should #wastehistime if he asks for nudes by sending your expensive collection of nude lipsticks. Good for you! But some of these posts make jokes out of some serious red-flag-worthy scenarios. For example: “finally allowing him to take you on a date and then having him drop you off at your other man’s house”, “telling him why you really like him and then never talking to him again and posting a photo two days later with your new boo”, “making him pick a college near you and then moving out of state” and “going to his games and then asking to hook up with his teammate” in an effort to #wastehistime are all very toxic behaviors. Again, I understand, it’s a joke, but these posts normalize women being able to treat men badly in relationships, while the internet adamantly shames men for the same actions. All I’m saying is we shouldn’t support and urge women who want to treat someone they’re in a relationship with badly if we would attack a man trying to do the same thing. We should be making posts about healthy relationship trends go viral, not making light of unhealthy dating behavior. Men should be shamed for negative dating behavior, but women shouldn’t be encouraged for it.
One of the biggest culprits of these trends is memes. Posts meant to be jokes that sometimes meander into the alarming territory. The subjects come and go, but two popular ones I’ve seen recently are the reactions to the latest season of You, and memes with the caption “me as a girlfriend”, often with the girl doing or saying something crazy. They’re funny, sure, but when you really think about them, we’re supporting a culture of manipulation and stalking our SO’s. The worst part is there’s just so many at this point it’s impossible to wade through them and point out which ones are harmless (and many of these memes really are harmless and even spread positive messages) and which ones are supporting unhealthy behavior, but you can see what I’m talking about here.
Finally, I think the online trend of “ghosting” is worth bringing up. According to Urban Dictionary, ghosting is “when a person cuts off all communication with their friends or the person they’re dating, with zero warning or notice beforehand. You’ll mostly see them avoiding friend’s phone calls, social media, and avoiding them in public.” Ghosting has become increasingly popular thanks to many people meeting and talking through different forms of social media. Therefore if it doesn’t work out, it’s extremely easy to just stop answering them, block them and never deal with their feelings face-to-face. This may be easy, but it’s not always the right thing to do. The internet makes it increasingly easy to be distant from those we’re trying to be intimate with, and that defeats the purpose. Sometimes, we just need to suck it up and deal with our feelings in person, rather than pressing “block” on another boy on Tinder. I’m not saying some people don’t deserve to be blocked, they definitely do, it’s just some food for thought to maybe think twice next time.
The point of this article is not to tear apart the internet or your favorite memes or be a muckraker. I love memes, and I love a good joke about relationship fails. All I want to say is that as Valentine’s Day approaches, we should all try and be more conscious of the content we are creating and sharing. Try and promote a healthy image of relationships and dating, rather than urge on posts making toxic behaviors “on-trend.”
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