We’ve all been there. You see a picture of a cute couple with an even cuter caption and think, “Wow, I wish I had that. They’re like...relationship goals.” And, of course, it really seems like they are. Because they make it seem that way. People only post the good stuff on Instagram and the loving candids on Snapchat and the heartfelt messages on Facebook.

Nobody wants to post about the “ugly” parts of their relationship. The fighting, the disagreeing, or the problems. Nobody posts all about the fights they’re having or how hard being in a serious relationship actually is. And for obvious reasons nobody posts any of this; nobody wants to see it, and it isn’t anyone’s business. All we want to see is cute happy couples who get along perfectly fine all the time and deny the other parts that make the relationship more genuine. These are the only parts of relationships that we actually want to know about, but nobody wants to know the truth behind the “relationship goals”.

The truth behind the relationship goals you see is so much more than what photos people choose to post on Instagram. You won’t see a real relationship on Instagram because the only people who see the relationship fully are the people in it. Nobody really talks about real relationships and what those are like when you’re not lovingly posting Instagram pictures about the “best boyfriend ever.”

Only seeing the perfectly edited, perfectly posed pictures is causing a sort of disillusionment with what relationships are actually like. We just want whatever we see on social media because, to us, that’s the perfect relationship and a guideline for what a relationship is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great idea to have your standards set way before you begin a relationship. Whatever way you get these standards is up to you, but it is good to know what you like and don’t like.

But in general, we need to stop comparing our personal relationships or what we want our future relationships to be like on what we see on Instagram or Twitter. We’ll never understand what’s actually going on with the people in the picture or video or whatever. There is so much more behind the cut picture or video that we will literally never know about. Maybe they’re genuinely that happy, and maybe they’re not. Maybe they actually never do fight, and maybe they fight all the time. The thing about it is we don’t know. The thing about looking up to celebrities’ or Instagram famous couples’ relationships is that we only know what they want us to know.

Personally, I have struggled with this in my own relationship because I’ll see something on Twitter and be like well why don’t I have that. But like it isn’t a competition. You’ll be so much happier in your own relationships if you stop comparing them to every picture perfect couple on the Internet. Every relationship is different. Try not to forget this when seeing #relationshipgoals after #relationshipgoals pictures on social media.