Loving someone has become so difficult with apps providing misguided advice about relationships.
People use social media every day. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have become spaces where people often go to find answers about life, including relationship advice.
Relationships are hard to navigate. Most of the time, first relationships fail because no one knows how to maintain them. That’s why content creators stepped up with advice about relationships.
I remember seeing a content posting about how men would lose interest after three months. This was called the three-month rule. The creator suggested you can’t love someone deeply before those three months pass.
At the same time, I was in the early stages of talking to someone and thought it could be an actual relationship, which is what that “rule” stuck with me.
But that relationship never moved beyond the talking stage, and after two months, he stopped talking to me without any reason. So technically, that three-month rule is wrong, but it wasn’t that simple.
Rather than enjoying my time with him, I found myself waiting to see if he would lose interest in me. I told myself not to believe in that rule, but I kept looking for signs, hoping to prove it wrong.
When I said I blame social media for making it difficult to love someone, it’s not because this advice is proven to be right or wrong, it’s because people are unable to make their own decisions about their own relationships and are relying on the social media messages from strangers to give them personal advice.
I saw creators on TikTok making content and telling their audience that if their partners don’t text them fast enough, they don’t really like you, or don’t have time for you.
This got me wondering, why did romance become manipulated?
A 2024 academic study by Kakembo Aisha Annet from the Faculty of at Kampala International University, Uganda, explored the impact of social media on modern relationships, including its influence on relationship expectations.
Her research shows that social media comes with a built-in comparison culture, and the inability to filter your social media intake can set up unrealistic expectations for relationships.
People post about their relationships on the internet. It’s their way to appreciate their partners. However, it’s good to remember they only post what they want people to see.
This kind of content is not harmful, but it can create insecurity and comparison if someone makes these posts their “standard.”
Annet said in her study that the more something becomes a standard, the more likely it also becomes a norm. And when it becomes a norm, people will strive to adapt these norms in their personal lives.
People are then relying on public judgment from social media to reassert their own value system, Annet’s study found.
Today, it seems too easy for people to let strangers on the internet persuade them how to have romantic relationships.
Love is different for everyone. I believe it's supposed to be personal and something that develops and is discussed between the people involved.
It might feel scary and frustrating when communications with our partners break down or when we are trying to decide if the relationship should move forward or not, but relationship advice on the internet is not the answer.
It’s normal to ask for relationship advice but pay attention to who you ask. Having someone we trust is better than seeking advice from strangers who know nothing about us.
Although it is disappointing, that person might not be the one for you, and that’s more than fine. Being single might be better than spending the rest of your life with someone who isn’t right for you or doesn’t respect you.
You are allowed to have standards; in fact, you must. But let it be your standards, your decisions, not those held by content creators on social media.
