Remember the Time

essay on social media and love

“Do you remember the time when we fell in love?”

I spent a lot of my time growing up watching movies. A common theme in every movie is always love. Doesn’t even have to be a romantic movie; love is entrenched in our media. It’s what we all consume, the food that feeds us and keeps us full. It’s hard to escape; everywhere you turn its flashing in your face. It’s even in our advertisement; it's a universal experience, something we can all relate to. Even if you haven’t experienced a relationship, most of us have experienced some form of romantic love.

Love is something we can fawn over; it makes us feel good. Even seeing sweet couples post on social media about how much they love eachother, it warms the heart, well, if you're not bitter. I mean, of course, there will be bitter people in every comment section under a post.

It’s something we will forever chase; we will forever want some type of form of connection. It’s only in our nature to want to feel love, to be appreciated. We are social creatures after all, we rely on eachother to stay sane, and romantic love is just another form of social interaction, another way to make us feel good.

Love is what makes the world go round, so of course it’s in everything we consume. People just can’t get enough of it.

Anyway, I wanted to write this essay about something else, a different perspective on love. A trend I have noticed in recent years, with the rise of social media, is this toxic expectation of love.

In movies, it seems that love always works out so perfectly, showing us a less messy side of love. That no matter the fights, the betrayal, the miscommunications, love will always triumph, and everything will be okay in the end. We have a soulmate ideal that is presented to us in the media, in which you’ll get your happily ever after. This soulmate ideal has only been amplified by social media, with influencers and even everyday people like you and me. When influencers post about love, they only show the cute photos of them and their partner posting together, the gifts, and the proof that they are perfect. That their relationship is nothing more than another fairytale, that it’s all just so perfect. But they don’t show the fights, the nights spent on the couch; they don’t show the fact that relationships are a collaboration between individuals. Now, I am not saying we are entitled to their personal lives, but they aren’t showing the full picture.

According to a source I used, Gen Z is the primary user of most social media platforms. Considering a good chunk of Gen Z is still young, we are still impressionable. Even grown adults are impressionable to social media and influencers. Because we are so young, we aren’t always the most knowledgeable about how relationships are supposed to work, and the outside influence of others telling us how relationships should look isn’t helping our case. Telling us that if you really love your partner, you’ll buy this for them, you’ll do this for them, telling us love is something to buy or win. With different consumeristic trends telling us to buy the newest jewelry and the newest gift basket for our partner, it’s hard not to grow jealous when you see everyone else get gifts from their partner, but your arms remain empty. If you happen to love gift-giving, then that’s fine, but don’t let some trend tell you that you need to prove your love by buying the newest junk for the person you love.

We convinced ourselves that love is something to win. That it’s a game of who can love the best, whose relationship is the sweetest. Love isn’t supposed to be conventional because not everyone loves the same, not everyone’s relationship will be perfect. Love shouldn’t be hard, but it shouldn’t be easy either. You are quite literally collaborating with someone else, someone with different thoughts and feelings. Of course, there will be bumps in the road, and sometimes it doesn’t work out.

Something that I think some young Gen Z don’t realize is that young love will not always last. It just is the depressing truth of being young. You will most likely not marry the person you meet at sixteen or eighteen. Because you are still immature, you are still growing, and you are still figuring out how to navigate relationships. But the reason why young love is so important is that it gives us the tools to navigate adult relationships. Your brain is still developing; it’s normal not to have those relationships work out. It’s harsh, but there’s a reason why most young relationships don’t work. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but it’s healthy not to always expect that this will be your happily ever after. Realizing that you're both immature and are both figuring out how a relationship works is a healthy mindset to have.

What’s unhealthy is to take grown adult relationships(im talking like mid-twenties and beyond) and project them onto your young-adult relationship. Not even grown-adult relationships are perfect; it can still be a struggle to have a functioning relationship between two adults, so why project that onto your relationship? It’s unreasonable. People need to stop using social media and movies as their guide on relationships, on how relationships are supposed to work. Because that just creates an unhealthy expectation of what love is supposed to look like. Learn from the people around you; learn from your own experiences; don’t listen to what some influencer has to say about love.

Something else that really bothers me about how social media has shaped our expectations of love is how we treat exes. Now, before I say anything further, I know that exes can be evil, trust me, some of my friends truly have some evil, scum of the earth exes. But sometimes, exes aren’t always evil; it's just because things don’t work out. Not every ex is a narcissist, not every ex is some evil manipulator sent from satan himself. Sometimes, things just don’t work out. Sometimes two people aren’t meant to be, and that’s it. Especially when you're young, you are still immature, so you are going to do immature things. Not everyone is evil, and I cannot express how much I hate the sentiment. Maybe I am just missing out on the joke, but my god, it is annoying to see people complain about their exes constantly. Move on. If they are that evil, why would you want to spend that much time thinking about them anyway? Relationships don’t always work out, and that’s fine. I believe that full-heartedly that it’s become a trend to just hate your ex, to speak ill of someone for no reason. If your ex is evil, then I don’t really care say what you want about them. But sometimes things just don’t work out, and that’s okay.

Social media has tainted our expectations of love and what it's supposed to look like. It’s tainted by how we treat past, current, and future relationships. It has forever impacted a generation and how we view romantic relationships.

Not only has it tainted those who are in relationships, but also those who go without. Younger people have been radicalized into thinking they are entitled to a girlfriend/boyfriend and that it’s the world’s fault for not giving it to them. As someone who has never been in a relationship, I might be bitter sometimes, but I am not entitled to someone because I want it. Just because you want something, you don’t always get it. We are taught that as children. I don’t know why the concept is so hard for some people to understand. To the people who believe they are entitled to a relationship, do you ever stop to think that maybe it’s not the world’s fault and that you just have an awful personality? Why would someone want to spend their time with someone who is bitter and hates others? I know the world is shallow, doesn’t mean you have to be as well. These communities have started growing, and people are just becoming more bitter and angry by the day. It all really boils down to entitlement and a fragile ego. And I am saying this as a person who has never experienced a relationship, so I am not on some high horse. You are not entitled to other people because you want something.

I am writing this from an outsider's perspective because at the end of the day, I have no idea how relationships work. All I know is that social media is ruining our expectations of love.

A/N: None of this is fact; it is just my opinion. Also, all my posts are named after songs. This one is named after a Michael Jackson song. I’ll probably write an essay about pyschological affects of love, or I won't, idk.