For centuries, there have been certain standards that people are held to in society. These standards help shape the way society runs, how people act, and give us an understanding of what is more acceptable and what is not. These standards are known as social norms, placed in every scenario in our lives, and used as a tool of judgement to base our actions off of.
Social norms create a lot of problems; in friendships, in relationships and in interactions that we expect to go a certain way. Social norms are a good basis for understanding what should be happening in certain situations, but every situation is different and every one reacts differently to these situations.
For the most part, social norms are a good rule of thumb to follow. In relationships, they help guide us and give us a general understanding of how fast we should be moving in the relationship. Social norms allow us to see red flags, questionable actions, and problems in the relationship before we get too deep into it.
But if everything is going well, too well, and the relationship no longer fits social norms, we start questioning everything. Are we moving too fast? Are we just in a state of ignorant bliss? Are we too happy to be able to keep it going for much longer?
When you hear stories of people who move in together after a month of dating you think to yourself how crazy they are, don't they know relationships take a turn all the time? Don't they realize they may hate each other after living together for a week?
But they live together happily, they stay together for years, get married and remain together for 30 plus years. And then we say, well, they were the exception.
When we hear stories of people getting engaged after only four months of dating, we assume they are crazy. Why would anyone get married that early in the relationship? What's the rush? They are not going to make it.
And yet, that couple seems to make it. And they are so madly in love that people envy their relationship and hope to find themselves in a similar relationship someday. But, because of social norms, we would never actually get engaged after only dating someone for four months. Even if we knew they were the one, they were our soul mate, they were the one who we would make it work with. Social norms hold us back from just being in our own type of relationship, whatever that looks like.
When someone marries their first significant other, they are crazy. Shouldn't they test the waters some more? How do they know that they are the one? They are just settling because that's comfortable. Little do we know, that first person they date, may in fact be the love of their life, the one they were meant to end up with.
Social norms are killing chances, scaring us into thinking we are just blinded by the feeling of happiness that will someday end. But what if it does not end? Societies standards when it comes to relationships is safe, that is the best word. We give ourselves enough time to really know someone before taking a next step, and if we take that step too slowly, well then we have to evaluate a whole other set of standards. There is a right pace for every situation, but this normality is not always right for the situation.
We must evaluate our own situation, not based on the social norms, but based on how we feel, how the thing as a whole is going, and how we want it to continue to go. Social standards are not necessarily an evil, but they do have the power to scare us and ruin something great. Look at the norms wisely, and then think of your own situation as a separate entity.
We judge people when they do anything outside the social norms, but when we are the ones stepping outside that boundary, we try to push those norms to the back of our minds. Because we know what we want, we know what makes us happy, we know that we might be crazy, but we might be the right kind of crazy with the right person, and that combination may just work out perfectly. Even if it is not inline with the social norms we all respond to.
