From a very young age, we are taught that perfect relationships exist and that we need to be in a perfect relationship to be truly happy. We see this as children through fairy tales that often end with the princess falling for a prince and living happily ever after.As we get older, we still see this idea of perfect romance portrayed through movies, books, songs and social media.
I remember one night I was scrolling through Instagram and stopped to read an influencer’s caption on a picture she posted for her anniversary with her boyfriend. Her caption detailed how happy her boyfriend made her every single day and how they are constantly laughing and never get sick of each other.
After reading that, I immediately felt worried that my relationship wasn’t good enough, because it wasn’t perfect and we weren’t laughing and happy 24/7.
We see this type of thing on social media all of the time and it can be really difficult not to compare your own relationship with these unrealistic standards. And, the thing is, many of the couples who seem to be the most in-love online end up breaking up and it turns out they really weren’t that happy in real life.
Celebrity couples such as Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes seemed like they were meant to be from what they showed the public, but just recently ended things seemingly out of nowhere. Similarly, couples like Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse or Dove Cameron and Thomas Doherty seemed to be so happy and obsessed with each other online, but ended things and were apparently a lot less perfect behind the scenes.
So, if we know that these expectations are unrealistic, why do we still let ourselves be influenced by them? I think deep down we crave this “perfect” nonexistent relationship that we’ve been force fed throughout our lives and we think if we can make our life look like a fairytale on social media, maybe it will start to feel like one.
While this all probably sounds very cynical, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that the “perfect” relationship doesn’t exist. There is a certain beauty in the realness of actual love. Real relationships have ups and downs and go through phases that aren’t all butterflies and excitement. It’s totally fine to just post the highs on social media, but it’s also important to acknowledge the fact that everyone else is doing that too.
I know some people who say things like “if they were really that happy together they wouldn’t feel the need to post about it all the time,” when talking about couples on social media. I don’t necessarily agree with this statement, because I think it’s completely up to each couple how much they want to post and that everyone should do what makes them feel happy.
I just think it’s always healthy for everyone to take a step back from social media from time to time and appreciate life for all it’s messiness and imperfections.
Relationships are extremely complicated, and so is social media. As we navigate our way through both of these, acknowledging how social media is impacting our view of relationships can be really beneficial. Just because your relationship doesn’t look like the posts you see on social media that doesn’t mean it isn’t normal, healthy and meaningful.