With the release of the show Love is Blind France, I noticed that the exchanges between the different contestants were all similar and were all dictated/guided by certain ideals that we find on social media.
First, I would like to focus on the pressure exerted by social media love coaches on both genders. Throughout the programme, as on my TikTok feed, the expression ‘capable man’ comes up a lot. The current definition of a ‘capable man’ lies in his financial capital and his ability to hide his emotions. But as Raewyn Connell pointed out in her 2014 book Masculinities: Social Issues of Hegemony, this model traps men in a state of flawless masculinity, which forbids them from showing any vulnerability and places women in a position of dependence on a breadwinner.
Nowadays, hundreds of content creators make very violent comments about men who express their emotions or who do not earn enough money, and advise many women to leave their partners if they do not meet these sometimes unattainable expectations.
Conversely, the pressure women face on social media is based on physical ideals and also on the number of sexual partners they have had. Indeed, according to some TikTok videos, a woman’s value lies in the number of sexual partners she has, and these same videos explain that a woman does not deserve to get married if she has a number considered ‘too high’; they are defined as ‘unmarriageable women’. These statements are directly linked to society’s control over women’s sex lives.
Furthermore, by consuming this type of content, men create a typical profile of women based solely on unattainable physical ideals. If these men lack perspective and emotional intelligence, they may begin to impose these unrealistic expectations on their partners without even considering the emotional impact of such thoughts.
In my opinion, to understand why individuals allow themselves to have such high expectations, we must take into account the idea that our consumer society makes us think that everyone is replaceable and that we can always find someone better. This is evident in existing relationships, but also when someone is in the world of dating, i.e. looking for a partner, social media gives them new criteria that are sometimes superficial and even inhuman.
I think there can be a positive aspect to incorporating some of these new criteria, because people can realise that they are not in a healthy relationship or in a relationship that suits them, and avoid getting involved in relationships that could cause them harm.
I will conclude my article by emphasising the fact that all these rules are guided by capitalism and by society’s attempt to make us more alike by erasing our individual personalities. This problem is reflected in the fact that this ‘advice’ and these ‘expectations’ do not take into account the background and uniqueness of a relationship between two people. These rules claim to be universal, but when it comes to human relationships, universality and total neutrality are not applicable. The problem lies in the fact that these coaches do not take into account all the external and unique parameters that make up a relationship. The well-known and widely used phrase in this type of content, ‘If they wanted to, they would,’ is proof of this. In fact, this phrase minimises the difficulties that individuals may encounter in their personal lives that prevent them from giving 100% to their relationship.
Group : Digital
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