As an adolescent, I was pretty engrossed in online books, where the relationships portrayed influenced the way I viewed dating. I ended up with a pretty unrealistic idea that my partner would somehow be aware that I am struggling with something even without me saying anything. In an online book, the protagonist is distant because they are bothered by something, but they refuse to say anything to their partner because they do not want to “burden” the latter. Later on, the partner somehow figures out what exactly is wrong and helps the protagonist. This is one instance that I can remember seeing in so many of the books I have read. What I did not realize at the time was that such books discourage any kind of communication and portray the protagonist’s partner as some kind of saviour.
When I first started dating my boyfriend, we experienced disagreements, and one thing he would tell me went along the lines of, “How will I know what’s wrong if you don’t tell me anything?” I would always expect him to know what was bothering me, and thinking about it now makes me realize how unfair that was for him. There was no way that he could have been able to understand my thought processes unless I communicated them to him. It took me some time to get comfortable telling him when something was wrong, since I felt like I was just being a “burden” by doing so.
However, with time, I learned that being honest about what bothers me is not supposed to be a load on my boyfriend’s shoulders. The books I read skewed my viewpoint such that communicating my need to be comfortable with something would be seen as a burden. By being in a committed relationship with each other, we have both agreed to be there for each other at all times and help as much as we can. Online books tend to paint an image of the partner as someone who knows everything, even without being told anything, and that’s pretty unrealistic. Any person you meet is only human, and if they are not told anything, there is no way that they’ll be able to understand what’s going on.