Hey, Twitter, it's me. Just one of your millions of followers who prides herself on the memes and videos that get me through my day. You have allowed me to express my frustration, happiness, sadness, and any other emotion you can probably name in response to certain aspects of my life, whether I'm feeling petty and write a subtweet, or post something dumb that happened to me that day, it always ends up on the worldwide inter-webs. I do have a pet peeve, though. I mean, if you're open to suggestions, that is, and I guess you have to be because this is clearly one-sided.
The amount of tweets I see that are captioned "Relationship Goals" accompanied with a picture of a teddy bear or even just a random (usually tan, white, heterosexual) couple cuddling is unnerving. And I know I can't be alone here. First off, why is that "relationship goals"? Because your boyfriend bought you something without you asking? And also, why do you have to broadcast that? Cool, your significant other brought you a milkshake at 1 a.m. because you tweeted that you were craving one, big whoop. Maybe I'm being too harsh. and maybe these grand gestures really do exemplify that chivalry in fact is not dead, but I also think it's just a little over the top.
And Twitter, I know you are not responsible for these dumb "relationship goals" posts on certain accounts, but I didn't really know who else I could talk to about this -- and I still do blame you because I'm petty.
Those seeing these outrageous posts only get a false sense of what relationships should really be like because of what they see online. These expectations start to become realities, and suddenly you're asking your significant other for a new phone rather than a hand-written card for Valentine's day. Basing your own relationship on a set of fictitious pictures online is just a recipe for disaster, and will only led to disappointment and envy.
I guess getting rid of "relationship goals" as a whole would be cool, but fairly unrealistic. There will always be those who flaunt their significant other on social media, which is awesome -- more power to you -- but I can't help but think that some element of privacy should be shared between the couple.
Comparing yourself and your partner to those you see online will only bring you nothing but unhappiness, and those high expectations as a result of these posts will only make you and your partner feel insecure.
Find someone who makes you not want to be on your phone scrolling through Twitter (sorry, Twitter) looking at those posts. Or better yet, go on a social media cleanse and drop off the face of the earth for a hot minute. It's actually pretty satisfying, and hey, guess what... There are no "relationship goals" posts when you don't have social media. How cool is that?
