What is our generation’s obsession with obsessiveness and hyper-surveillance in relationships ?
As someone who’s never been in a relationship, it’s been interesting seeing this play out in real life. I want to convey my thoughts by addressing the four main ways I see this happening.
“What are you hiding!” We are blessed to live in a day and age where anything we want to see or do is in the palm of our hands. Phone devices have made it possible to see EVERYTHING that your partner does. I’ve observed how couples constantly share each other’s location, give each other their social media passwords, give them their phone’s password. Being in a relationship now seems to mean that you cannot have privacy because well if you weren’t doing something bad, why are you scared of letting me see this? Now let’s say that two people just got into a relationship and one of them asks to have access to some of the examples I listed. If the person feels as if that’s too much, the one who proposed the request is gonna get their thoughts reaffirmed by everyone around them. It’s always anecdotal. “Oh my boyfriend lets me do this so if yours doesn’t, he doesn't love you as much.” “My bf and I are literally connected at the hip and I always go through his phone” etc…
“I’m the only one that exists…” Now, for this one I give people a little bit of grace because sure you want your partner to be loyal to you and to cherish you. But, Gen-Z has taken it wayyy too far. This sentiment of “If you’re in love with someone, you only have your eyes on them and no one else” is SOOOOO widespread. I felt like I was crazy for thinking that it was weird. No, it’s not a crime to find other people attractive. It causes unnecessary guilt and confusion if someone does find themselves being in a relationship. It’s especially unrealistic for long-term healthy relationships. No, I’m not saying your partner should constantly talk to you about who they find attractive but please get a grip. They also don’t want you to have any interactions with people of the opposite gender which I’m not gonna get into here but I think that that’s concerning.
“We’re in this forever” Look, I love me a cute love story but y'all have made it seem as if teenage relationships should lead to marriage and if you don’t try for it, you didn’t love each other enough . When you are a teen, you BARELY have any life experience and have no idea who you want to be. I’m not saying that it’s bad to be in a relationship at this age because that’s false. Relationships can teach you a lot about life and what you expect in a relationship. But, you shouldn’t plan your life around this person. For example let’s say it’s time to graduate and you have the opportunity to go to a really good school which could break you and your partner’s relationship or stay in your small town, get married soon out of high school, and attend a local college There are some of you out there that WOULD deny good opportunities for a relationship that will likely not lead to marriage. If you’re willing to not do big things in your life because you value love more than great but do NOT go around shaming people who want to be independent and explore life outside of a high school relationship .
“Pure Love” I titled this section pure love because I want to touch on how Gen-Z has re-branded purity culture and made it a “loving relationship” thing. They do this primarily by shaming people in polyamorous relationships and flat out LIE about why. They say that they’re “indecisive, impulsive, irresponsible, weren’t loved enough” and it’s even more funny hearing it coming out of the mouths of straight cisgender women. Romantic relationships/Marriage has damaged so many of us and our female counterparts yet you have the audacity to sit here and label people who love differently as the ones who don’t know true love? We all know heterosexual couples have the best relationships where there’s mutual understanding, equal care that both partners give to the children, good sex, sharing of household responsibilities right guys!...right guys?...The second way that they do this is by demonizing people who don’t mind them or their partner exploring their sexuality in different types of ways such as watching adult material or going into kinky spaces. I want to be abundantly clear, if you aren’t comfortable with your partner watching that type of material you don’t have to stay in that relationship with them. If you don’t like how things are shifting in the relationship due to exploration, you can leave. But instead of them doing this, they want to impose this on EVERYONE and try to imply that the person’s partner doesn’t love them enough. It’s so disgusting. We have a very fairy-tale view of love and that needs to start being challenged.
I want to hear your thoughts and have meaningful dialogue. Here’s a question that you guys can answer if you’d like: If your new partner asked for your Reddit handle would you give it to them? If no, how would you explain it to them?