As Valentine’s Day approaches, along with the artificial flex of who got roses or taken out to dinner, an interesting and reoccuring conversation that I find prevalent in my life is the correlation between social media and relationships. Two solid questions that I pose about this interesting topic are: When did there even become a correlation? Does this make everyone’s life harder?

I only say this because I’ve been in relationships too. As foolish as it sounds, one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make was posting whoever was in my life at the moment for the first time. That’s right, posting one human being opened a can of worms I would have to consider every single time. And then if I went on a date or got flowers, it became a moment for myself and my followers. I would hurry to post a picture of where people would routinely leave “y’all are so cute!” in the comments, stroking whatever stamp of approval I needed to deem my relationship “put-together.” I’m not sure when it was, but one day and a relationship later, I realized that the sparkle in my significant other’s smile as they watched me open the present I received, or the way that moment felt, was far better than making a post about it that everyone could always see. That moment became mine, and mine only, making me think twice about posting something only I needed to cherish.

With that being said, our generation has the lovely honor of being connected to people in the instance of a second, bringing out all kinds of insecurities no one ever knew they had. This correlation was created the moment technology advanced and social media became a smokescreen into people’s personal lives, making navigating the already-complicated world of dating that much harder.

Word of advice: Put the phone down and stare into each other’s eyes while sharing a shake or whatever it was that couples did before posing for a phone screen that wiggled its way into the majority of society’s date nights. The moment is in time, not your social media post.

For all of my love-birds,

Xoxo,

Big Sis