Social media within itself can cause a lot of issues when it comes to self-esteem, jealousy, obsession and overall, an unrealistic expectation of how someone should look and live their life. When it comes to relationships, all of your feelings and insecurities stemming from social media will be projected onto your relationship and partner, causing challenges with trust and genuine connections.
Social media wasn’t always used to portray the negatives that come with self-comparison, it was originally used as a form of expression and creativity. People use social media sites as a way to explore and share parts of themselves and their lives that they find inspiring. Instagram was the main platform for people to post photography and advertise brands for their growing businesses. Although you will still see this kind of content on Instagram, you may also see other posts that make you question.
As social media is growing into something negative and demeaning towards authenticity, true romance is slowly dying. The allure of not knowing anything about a person until you get to know them naturally isn’t so much there anymore. With the click of a few buttons, you can find someone’s whole life history and maybe even where they live if you know where to look right.
A true connection with someone is based on your first few interactions with them, but if you go into meeting someone with certain expectations and already have previous knowledge of who they are, your judgment is clouded. Going into a potential relationship with an open mind heightens your curiosity and allows for the connection to feel more real.
Another issue that social media can be a factor in relationships is the easy access to entertaining other people or idolizing certain public figures. Over the years, social media has become a very sexualized source of content that is observable to anyone who wants to see it. Cheating is one of the main worries when it comes to trusting someone enough to be fully comfortable with them.
In my opinion, apps like Instagram and Snapchat make it all that easier and more tempting to view things that you shouldn’t. No one wants to look at their significant other’s phone and see beautiful men or women on their page, but that is the new normal for some. It is so normal that some people in relationships consider it to just be casual viewing or not that big of a deal because those people aren’t real. However, the feelings provoked by having to compare yourself to those people on your partner’s phone are very much real and should not be undermined.
There are also a lot of toxic stigmas that circulate throughout social media regarding men and women. People love to have the notion that everyone is toxic and point the finger at either men or women for whose fault that is. Truth be told, I think everyone is toxic in their own ways, but social media glorifies that by making it feel almost impossible to trust anyone at that point.
TikTok, specifically, is where I see all of the negative comments surrounding love and relationships, claiming that women are liars and all men are cheaters. The advice that I like to give to myself when I fall into the stigma is that someone’s behavior is not based on their gender, it always has to do with the person that they are.
Social media tends to feed into our worries and insecurities about how other people see us and how we see ourselves. When you are building a relationship with someone, these stressors are magnified and tend to cause trouble staying connected with someone if they allow it to get in the way. If you ever find that you are in a situation where your significant other is making you feel lesser than you are because of what they choose to engage in, know that they are not worth your time.
Feeling like you need to be something different than who you are just to fit someone else’s narrative isn’t what a genuine relationship should feel like. Everyone is unique in their individuality, and comparing yourself to people who you see online will only make it feel more impossible to be confident in yourself and your life. Find someone who makes you feel transcendently beautiful and seen for who you are and nothing but.