Why do we have such an obsession with portraying ourselves on social media in a misleading way? Why is there a bar set of our expectation of perfection when that is no way achievable? And the worst part of all of this is that the rest of us see these photos of happiness and we actually think their lives are perfect with no problems whatsoever.
Don’t get me wrong, I think social media is a place where we should share our happy moments rather than our depressing ones because we want the people closest to us in our lives to see the good times. But it gets to a point where it’s excessive and seems like you’re over compensating your happiness with post after post rather than genuinely just wanting me to see your vacation in Hawaii. And this becomes a problem when I see the captions you post on the internet praising the “so called” love of your life, and then I see you a week later in person and you’re in tears over your toxic relationship.
Famous Instagram couple, Alexis Ren and Jay Alvarrez have been the epitome of #relationshipgoals for a few years now. Their endless number of photos featuring them traveling the world together and trying extreme things is what has become any millennials dream. As of a few days ago, Alexis Ren opened up on Twitter about the truth behind their ‘perfect’ relationship. She stated to her 600k followers that she was manipulated by being pushed to her limits so she would have to break it off rather than him getting blamed for it. She went on to say, “the relationship wasn’t good for his business anymore.” A follower asked her, “you couldn’t realize this kind of abuse when you were with him? Or you knew he was like this and closed your eyes anyway?” Alexis replied by saying, “Love makes you blind tho I can’t deny I felt something was wrong.”
Jay Alvarrez started adding fire to the fuel late Wednesday night by replying to followers. One of his followers tweeted, “how pathetic the once lovey-dovey couple turns out something like this.” Jay responded with, “Ahh I agree :(, But It’s all laughs and fun for me if I can use her low immaturity as a positive thing, why not.” A tweet that was later deleted by the follower he responded to, Jay tweeted still by saying, “Never! Oh boy if only you guys knew the truth on this, I’ll stay quiet for now.”
Being a follower of this couple for a little over a year now I was shocked, to say the least when I heard the news of their fallout. But it made me realize that I too have posted about my life in a way that wasn’t in its true form. This why I want to raise awareness that most of us post about our relationship being more than it really is. We’re being a part of setting this unrealistic expectation for a perfect life for future generations and in my opinion, we need to be more cautious of what we post. Again, I don’t think we should post the ugly times in our relationships on social media because that is no one’s business except you and your partners. But I do think by not posting an overwhelming number of pictures in a rough time making it out to be that your relationship isn’t flawed is a more accurate feeling and shows that you’re more human than your posts lead us to believe.