Why I’m Private About My Relationship On Social Media

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social media and behavior

Source: Delmaine Donson / Getty

“You almost never post anything about you and your boyfriend” is something people say to me a lot. I also hear, “I didn’t even realize you were in a relationship! I couldn’t tell from your Facebook page.” People are shocked that I don’t post seflies with my boo—like those creepily intimate ones many couples post in bed together or making out—but it really just doesn’t suit my personality to do that. I do, for the record, have photos of us up, but he doesn’t make it into most of my posts, and my photo albums are not just littered with lovey-dovey pictures. I have my family, my pet, my hobbies, my work, and so much more. I do feel pretty strongly about people keeping it cool on social media in terms of relationship-related posts. I see a lot of couples abuse social media with their couple posts and I’ve made it a point not to be one of them. Here are reasons I’m private about my relationship on social media.

I’m very busy

First of all, I don’t post on social media much in general. I’m too busy to do so. And, I feel that unless you need to post for business reasons—like your social media pages drive traffic to your company—there’s no reason anybody needs to see everybody else’s meals they eat and pretty flowers they see every day.

I’d need his consent

I don’t think it’s up to me to decide when I post a photo or fact about my partner for the public to see. I always ask for his permission, first. He gives it 95 percent of the time, but I also don’t want to pester him that often by even asking. I see a lot of people post extremely intimate photos of their partners online and wonder, “Did they ask their partner if that was okay?”

I don’t want to rub anything in

The reality is that there are a lot of single individuals out there who do feel very sad that they don’t have a long-term, meaningful relationship in their lives. I don’t need to rub mine in their faces. I understand that, of course, nobody who cares about me would be angered by such photos, but since I know they are single and are lonely, why should I make them look at these images?

Even just our activities

Romantic or not, my partner and I also just do things that not everybody can afford to do. We are by no means super wealthy, but we are fortune enough to go on a couple trips a year and dine out at restaurants occasionally. Some people cannot afford to do that, and, the truth is that the photos worth posting of my boo and I are of us doing those more expensive things.

Receiving likes for my love feels gross

Receiving approval from strangers, via “likes”, of my romantic and intimate relationship feels gross. Getting love from my partner is enough: I don’t need people to like our love.

Anniversaries are for weddings

Can we also please finally agree that lengthy anniversary posts and photo shoots should be for wedding anniversaries. That is an anniversary.

Or the very least, five-plus years

I also know many couples never get married, so can we at least agree to stop with the posts about three-month anniversaries. I mean…what?! That’s just getting out of hand. If you haven’t been together for at least five years, don’t post about it.

It’s not interesting to most people

I know that my love is not that interesting to most people. When people accepted my friend request, they put their trust in me to post things that might be interesting to the general public—not just to me. “Will anyone else care?” is one of the things I ask myself before posting.

It’s not open to critique

Not only does getting likes for my love feel gross, but getting any sort of criticism does, too. I see women post photos of, say, a gift their partner got them. And then people will start criticizing the gift in the comment section. I am not opening up my love to the opinions of others.

Some overdo it

Some couples really overdo it. You know who you are. Every day or at least several times a week are these photo collages of them and their boo and four-page essays on their love. They really give posting about relationships a bad name.

I’m no expert

As for posting about how to make a relationship work or things like that (which many couples do), I am not a relationship therapist. Who am I to claim that I know all there is to know about love?

I need to control my social life

I need to protect us socially, too. If we check in at a restaurant or a hotel, we risk another couple we don’t like reaching out and saying, “Oh my gosh we are here too! Let’s hang out!”

There’s much more to me

There is so much more to me than my romantic relationship. That is a big part of my life, but there is also my career, my interests, my social life, my pet, my love of fashion…I want my social media to represent all of that.

I want to keep us safe

There are also a lot of crazies online and you know it’s true. If there is a man out there who is obsessed with me and stalking me (it has happened) I don’t need him to know my partner’s name or any other details about him. I need to keep us safe.

I don’t want to be that couple

I really don’t want to be that couple who overdoes it with the couples posts. Maybe I’ve overcorrected but I’d rather do that than be the person everyone unfollows because it’s just too much.

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