We are in wedding and engagement season. At least, judging by my Facebook feed.
Not a day goes by without someone posting an ‘OMG, SO I JUST SAID YES!’ status accompanied by a pic of a ring that costs more than twice your monthly wage, or a load of soft-focused professional photos of bunting-draped weddings, with a gorgeous close-up in which the bride’s smile is the only thing brighter than the glinting diamond.
And that’s before we even get to the status updates between couples themselves, linking to each other in posts, tittering about in-jokes and recent blissful holidays, posting photos of properly ‘couply’ things, such as tooth-achingly-soppy Valentine’s cards, long walks in the countryside, or romantic mini-breaks to Paris. You know the score.
You may detect some bitterness, and you’d be right – it’s particularly galling to be presented with this stream of coupled-up joy when my own formerly-lovely relationship has recently crumbled into the ether (oh, don’t worry about me, I have Netflix and gin). But now it's actually been proven that no one likes an relationship oversharer on social media.
A study by Professor Benjamin Le of Haverford College in Pennsylvania has recently found that, while posting constant updates and photos of your relationship on social media makes others think your couple is on solid ground, it also makes them hate you more. Or, as Professor Le put it, ’Those disclosing a lot about their relationships were the least liked.’ Yep. Sorry.
You might well be nodding along in agreement right now. Indeed, my ex was so anti-posting relationship-type stuff on Facebook that he ducked out of pretty much every photo I tried to take of him doing whatever we were doing. Which was mildly odd when it was clearly a two-person restaurant table with a two-person-sized portion of chips. But I digress.
Because, wait a second, Professor ‘I Hate My Mates’ Le, despite all my ranting and raving, I actually think posting about your relationship can be a good thing. Hear me out.
Even if you’re feeling as likely to find a great relationship as you are of jetting to Jupiter, it’s nice to know that, every once in a while, the people you know are doing OK, and that good relationships do exist.
For example, I once accidentally posted a selfie of me and my ex in front of the Eiffel Tower on one of those aforementioned mini-breaks. We looked stupidly happy, and were laughing, partly because we were in Paris, but mainly because we couldn’t figure out how this stupid new camera app worked.
Turns out, it did take the photo, and was actually also linked to my Facebook automatically. ARGH. Laughing? In front of the Eiffel Tower?! I thought everyone would fucking hate us.
But, before I knew it, I had the most likes I’ve ever had for one of my photos, and lots of lovely comments.
Having refrained from posting that many relationship-centred updates before that, I was pleasantly surprised that people didn’t roll their eyes (or if they did, they did it secretly). I reckon it’s because I posted such stuff fairly infrequently, that people didn’t have time to get pissed off.
Yes, if I had been constantly putting pics of our smiling mugs up online, my friends would understandably have got utterly sick of the sight of us. A few small check-ins every few weeks, however? Totally fine.
I’d feel the same about friends I have who live abroad in New Zealand, America and France – it’s nice to know they’re OK and happy.
Equally, just like moving countries or getting a new job, getting married or finding a happy relationship is one of the most significant things people can do in their lives, whether you personally subscribe to the idea or not.
Frankly, when social media is often made up of the most mundane crap, it makes sense that you would especially post about your happy moments, your engagement and your wedding. Especially, I imagine, when you’ve haemorrhaged money for the past year and a half in the planning. If I’d bankrupted myself with boring shit like chair hire and table flower arrangements and fifteen kinds of salad, I’d want to post a few of nice photos of the final event too, dammit. Ditto if I’d spent more than an hour getting my hair done.
And you know what, that's fine with me. Because, while I may not be close enough to someone to get an invite to their nuptials, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to pore all over their dress and decoration choices and drop, momentarily, into a flowy-dress-and-flowers haze. And when it gets too much, guess what? I can click ‘x’, and move on.
Besides, sharing in someone’s happiness doesn’t mean there’s none left for you. You wouldn’t tell a mate you didn’t give a crap about their new job just because your own isn’t perfect. Equally, you can simultaneously want to cry with happiness at your friend’s wedding while also being secretly glad you get to go home after it’s all done with.
In fact, seeing someone else happy is actually more likely to see joy spill into your own life, according to endless studies, such as this one from the Universities of California and Yale, which analysed over 2 billion statuses to find that positive emotions shared online are actually contagious.
And if all that isn’t enough to convince you to give your cynicism about Twosies – or whatever the modern technical term is for a picture of your mate and her boyfriend – remember this: relationship posts on social media are no different from everything else on there. Ie: should contain a warning, like medicine, ‘To take with a massive pinch of salt.’
Because, yeah, they may be posting a particularly sickening, seemingly-airbrushed couple shot. But they’ll probably also casually have forgotten to mention that the only reason they're smiling with such determination is because they’ve just made up after arguing about boxer shorts on the floor. Again.
Follow Hannah on Twitter @HannahsRhapsody
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.