I Don’t Believe In Instagram Love (Anymore)
Anyone can pause all of their problems and smile long enough to snap a picture.
The social media purge is the modern day post-breakup ritual. You comb through all your accounts, you declare to the world you’re single again (or opt for the more discreet “no answer” option), and you delete all the pictures, starting with the kissing ones. You know the ones, those sappy “we’re so romantic” pictures that very often come accompanied by a long declaration of eternal love. They are the first to go.
My ex-husband was quick: a month after we decided to end things (divorce papers weren’t even signed yet) I had been eradicated from his online life. And when I noticed, it stung.
Funny how something so silly like social media can have that effect on us. But more on that later.
I took a lot longer to get to that point.
I wanted to be different. I wanted to be the person who doesn’t erase someone from her life like that. The relationship had been a big part of my life, I thought, what was I supposed to do, pretend it never happened?
Was I supposed to just delete every picture with every boyfriend at every relationship that ended?
“That’s what people do”, a friend said when I asked her. She shrugged to mark the point of how silly it was for me to even ask in the first place.
I insisted on being different. I insisted on being the one who keeps her past where it belongs — further down my page as you scroll — , and if anyone else I got involved with had a problem with that, well, that would be their problem.
Nearly nine months after we had separated, with the divorce finally made official, I looked back at my old Instagram posts and realized I felt different.
My page wasn’t all about my relationship, but the kissing pictures and the smiling pictures and the wedding pictures sprinkled here and there made my stomach turn.
In part because that life had been so completely and throughly left behind it barely felt like it had been lived by the same person looking back at it now. In part because I could remember exactly how I felt when I posted most of those. I didn’t feel happy at all.
I felt like I needed to prove to myself I was happy by lying to the world about how happy I was.
I needed those hearts, I needed those comments telling me how my husband and I were such a cute couple, and how much we seemed to be meant for each other.
Everyone knows hearts and comments never lie.
I also felt the need to be envied, just like I envied others and their perfect relationships. Those posts didn’t mean I was happy, they meant “look at me, I’m in a relationship too. I, too, am loved and cared for” — even though none of that was necessarily true.
The wedding pictures were the first to go, after all, I wasn’t married anymore. Then went the lying “happy relationship” pictures, the ones I posted to try to convince myself everything was still ok.
I was able to identify a few I had posted out of genuine happiness. Moments when I had been present, having fun and, yes, feeling completely in love. But those were about 50% or less of all my relationship pictures. (And they’re still there).
Having drinks with a friend who’d broken up a two years engagement four months before the wedding, we got into the subject of online love. More specifically, Instagram love.
I told him about my 50/50 ratio when it came to relationship posts; how about 50% were genuinely in-love, happy, in-the-moment pictures, and about 50% were a desperate cry for validation and third-party envy.
“In my case, it was 100% fake happiness”, he confessed.
Then he told me all the ways in which his ex-fiancé had been abusive towards him, and how every time he’d post a picture his only goal was to try to please her and make peace after a fight.
Even the day he proposed, kneeling down ring in hand in a romantic setting before a beautiful sunset, they had a horrible fight. You couldn’t tell from the pictures. Even I had hearted their proposal pics at the time, with a pang of jealousy for how romantic and very different from my own proposal story it all had been.
Another acquaintance of mine, I heard, got divorced after being married for a little over two years. The reason? She found out he had been cheating. Just as he had done when they were engaged, and she’d forgiven him for it. Just as he had done when they were dating, and she’d forgiven him for it. I guess she finally had enough. Good for her.
Looking at her Instagram, however, no one would suspect a thing. It was the perfect relationship from day one. So much love it could last two lifetimes.
Another friend also recently told me that the only picture he ever posted of him and his former girlfriend didn’t reflect spontaneous happiness at all. He only did it because they had had a fight and he wanted to make peace.
I used to be jealous of Instagram love. Not anymore.
Now, every time I see a perfect picture of a perfect couple I wonder what they’re compensating for. The oftener they post about how amazing their spouse is, the more I wonder how their screaming matches are like.
Is that mean? Maybe.
I’ve been trying to extend the benefit of the doubt, mostly based on the 50/50 ratio I experienced myself, but in general, I’m very skeptical.
Skepticism is helpful when it comes to social media. It’s easy to find yourself in the trap of believing every post is genuine, which in turn causes you to feel like you have to post too, just to prove you’re not that far behind in life. The truth is anyone can pretend to be happy long enough to take a picture. How long does that take, 30 seconds? It represents nothing.
Anyone can hold their breath for 30 seconds. The question is, how many of them can handle the deep dive?
The answer: not that many.
