I was asked a question the other night from my partner “why do you love me?” I thought it was an easy question to answer, I began to explain his qualities and personality traits the fact he was caring, kind, and a gentleman and the way in which his face would light up at certain moments. However, after listening to a few other people explain why they love their partner it seems to be only materialistic advantages that are mentioned by most.
The second thing I have noticed is that when friends, associates and people in general explain their new partner or new “friend” they say comments like, “he is a doctor”, “he drives a Mercedes”, “he has money”, “he spends money on me” and “he takes me out”. Since when did monetary value dictate the description of the person we date and hopefully fall in love with?
Its seems to be a bit like a resume for dating, beefed up questions and answers that prove or affirm the benefits and qualities of falling in love and having a relationship with someone, that purely examine the ways in which how well they can provide. Not to mention completely useless information that has nothing to do with the question asked, imagine if you were looking for someone to mow your lawns on a Facebook area page and in your add you wrote, “can someone please quote the mowing of lawns of a large three story house overlooking the harbour”, completely useless information isn’t it? It seems more and more in this day of age people feel the need to brag or boast about unrelated materialistic value for no apparent reason.
Instead of looking for a partner in which we can share loyal and loving moments with we strive for someone who we can post “relationship goals” onto Instagram or Facebook with.
Since when did #relationshipgoals dictate our validation in a relationship?
Love should be and is much more than gifts, love is hard work, love is caring about someone with all your heart and wanting the absolute best for them in life. It shouldn’t be about how much money or how many gifts you buy someone to validate how much you are worth to them and vice versa.
With social media comes competitions, and with competitions brings jealousy or a false sense of what is expected in a relationship. There are pages dedicated to “relationship goals”, “birthday goals”, “valentine’s day goals” and even “proposal goals”. These are flooding our newsfeeds, with materialistic expectations of what these events should look like, and if you’re someone who doesn’t receive glutinous affirmations like these depicted you feel as though you’re not in the right relationship or as if you are missing out on something.
It’s disappointing how “relationship goals” are now measured by how much money your significant other spends on you. Relationships have turned into bragging rights on social media instead of loving, caring and intimate moments shared between two people. Relationships aren’t defined on feelings anymore, they are defined on what others think and feel about the gifts you receive – our generation has it all wrong.
Appreciating and loving one another is what relationships are about
You should be happy to have that person in your life and appreciate and enjoy the little things. Sometimes our generation needs to realise that love shouldn’t be utterly built on materialistic items, and we need to appreciate what is in front of us. Our generation freely throws around the term “relationship goals” purely to only represent the materialistic side of a relationship, these then become wants and needs of a relationship where they think it is normal to buy each other overly expensive gifts and unrealistic expectorations of what we should receive from our partners.
Unfortunately, this has completely deconstructed our acceptance and appreciation of what relationships are really about. Gifts are not bad, they are extremely sweet and its one way in which you can treat your significant other and surprise them. The idea though has been blown out of the water into “insta worthy” moments and bragging rights.
We become jealous of what others have, or what others have been given, but if we going into a relationships expecting these things or posting about these things to make others envy us the relationships will quickly nose-dive.
Social media is very good at glamorising those who seem to “have it all” with the expectation that you need to spend wild amounts of money in order to have that “social media approved” relationship.
A simple laugh, an embrace, a moment shared together is worth so much more in the long run. There is no definition of a “perfect relationship” but everyone has their own person that they feel is perfect for them, someone who you are happy with being together with, growing old with one another, enjoying the small moments and the big, and creating memories.
We need to remember that being happy is an important goal, and relationships aren’t all unicorns and rainbows, working together, overcoming obstacles, and working every day on your relationship.
At the end of the day the only thing you can count on is your significant other, materialistic items break, get left in drawers of forgotten about. But your “person” with all the ups and downs is there, with their laugh, their smiles, their angry face, their cheeky grin, and all the accomplishments you have had together. So that you can have an honest and long lasting relationship.
Morgan x
Author: Morgan is a consultant from Oh Zone Adult Lifestyle Centres
Meet Morgan, a young designer advocating equality and speaking out against violence. Her journey in the adult industry has been transformative.