You Don't Post About Your Relationship Online? Yep, You're Ashamed

I'm going to admit to something most people like to pretend they don't do.

I went cyberstalking an ex-friend.

Not a lover, a friend. A female friend.

I was at a concert the other day and I thought I saw her there. I checked online to see if my eyes were deceiving me at the time, and they were.

But I noticed why it couldn't have been her at the concert. It was her ten-year anniversary with her husband. She posted a photo of him on Instagram, and tagged him in it.

It was sweet. You could tell from the rest of her feed littered with photos of them how much she loves him.

Out of curiosity, I wondered how he celebrated their milestone. I clicked on his profile. I scrolled through the entire feed.

Not a single photo of my friend existed on the page. Not one. Not even in a gallery or a reel. And he had his tagged pictures section of the feed turned off.

When you looked at his page, filled with regularly posted pictures, you wouldn't know he was married, single, or otherwise.

Why was he doing this?

I came to the one and only conclusion; he's ashamed of being with my friend. Because when you love someone, you post pictures of them online.

And when you're ashamed of them, you hide them.

People who like the look of their partner post about them

Somewhere deep down, you know the reason for hiding your partner's face from your social presence.

It's because you want to pretend they don't look the way they do. You're embarrassed to be seen dating someone who looks the way your partner does.

Even though you're attracted to them, that doesn't matter within a social context. By putting up a picture of your partner online:

• You think others will ridicule their looks
• You think others won't approve of the way they look
• You don't think they're good-looking enough to be on your social media feed
• You don't think their appearance belongs next to yours in a picture
• You think they're too good-looking for you and other people will point out the physical inequity between you

No matter what the reason, holding back posting pictures of your partner based on their appearance indicates your embarrassment towards your partner.

You care too much about what the world has to say about how your partner looks, even if you don't care about how they look.

It's easier to not post pictures of them than it is to post them.

Call it laziness, call it ashamed, either way, you're avoiding a situation you know is uncomfortable for you.

People who are proud to be in a relationship say it

There are two types of people. Those who tell people they are in a relationship and those who don't.

Let's focus on those who don't. The reasons for not telling anyone about their relationship are pretty simple.

You're either ashamed of your relationship and don't want anyone to know about it. Or you're being devious, deliberately appearing single, unattached, or ambiguous for sinister reasons.

Either way, you're feeling embarrassed about being with your partner.

You don't want the world to know you're in a relationship, or in a relationship specifically with that person.

People who love, care and respect their partner don't present to the world with an ambiguous relationship status online.

At a basic level, they wouldn't want it done to them, so they don't do it to others.

But they also don't feel the need to hide. When they love someone, they're happy to shout it from the online rooftops. When they love someone, they also don't even contemplate appearing borderline single.

There is no need for keeping their options open or anything like that.

I want to clear up one thing. There are no rules to say you have to post pictures of your relationship, by the way.

You don't have to say you're single or taken, either. Your profile photo doesn't have to be with you and your partner, for example.

But if you're posting pictures of friends, family, and your life and deliberately leaving your romantic life out, that inaction speaks volumes.

That's a conscious choice to hide your relationship.

People who want to be linked to their partner say it

I like telling the world I'm with my husband. I took his surname. I changed my name to align with him. I want to be associated with him and what he stands for. I'm not ashamed of my husband.

If your name and their name coexist online, and that's a problem for you, that's telling. It means you don't want anyone to know you even know who they are in real life, let alone being the person dating them.

The reasons for this could be many. It could be because you're dating a criminal, someone really hated in the influencer space, or someone in your personal life who everyone deems bad news.

The reasons are endless why you wouldn't your face with theirs.

And with that, the reasons don't matter. It could be justifiable for you not to want to show your face with them; your partner might understand why you would make that decision. It doesn't change the fact you're ashamed though.

I stumbled across a part of Tiktok where women use the hashtag #jailwife. These are the partner of incarcerated men. And they show what it's like to be a supportive partner to a criminal. There's no shame in their relationships at all.

They don't hide it. And some would say they have good reason to hide them too. But they don't.

People who love their partner ink their relationship to the internet

The internet is made of ink. Every time you add to it, you can't always take it away.

Ok, I'm going to admit to feeling ashamed of a former partner. I'm fine to throw myself under the bus as I discuss a relationship from fifteen years ago.

I was dating a man I was planning to break up with.

Yes, I should have broken up with him the moment I thought about doing it. But life wasn't that simple, nor was the timing.

As I knew he wasn't going to be sticking around in my real life, my online world reflected this.

I didn't post any pictures of him and me together. I kept my online life free of this man, to make it easier on the breakup. I wouldn't need to go and delete old pictures. And I wouldn't need to feel guilty or sad when I saw his face in my feed.

It was pre-emptive damage control. It was also my shame. The moment I knew I didn't want to be with him, I felt ashamed that I was feeling that way.

And I wanted to hide it.

People who aren't ashamed of their partner don't make excuses not to post

I know what you're thinking.

'I'm not ashamed of my partner. I have special circumstances, very real and raw issues, that prevent me from posting about my partner online. And these excuses aren't my fault. I can't control them.'

Whilst you might feel like you can't control these reasons, most of them are just another excuse to cover your shame.

Let's dig into some of these excuses.

Secret romance

You aren't out with your relationship, yet. You're keeping it a secret from the world, both of you, and you don't share anything about it online or offline.

Problem? Well, you're both ashamed in this scenario. Keeping it a secret for the long term isn't a sign you're proud to be together. Nor does it set the right tone for the future.

You don't post pics of anyone

What's the big deal? You don't post pictures of people you know or even yourself, so who cares if you don't show off your love life?

Problem? As long as you're consistent, this outlier doesn't always mean you're ashamed. And it doesn't always spell disaster for your relationship. The only issue I see is the inequity between you and your partner. If they post pictures of your relationship and you don't, the imbalance can often cause arguments and trust issues.

You can't post pictures because of 'work'

Your job and your social media are intrinsically linked. You can't show off your personal life due to confusing the work aspect of life. Wrestlers often face this issue. They're meant to be playing a character in and out of the ring. If they deviate from that, it confuses the message.

Problem? Sometimes people fall back on the work excuse when it's not true. They tell their significant other work has banned personal identities when it's not the case. Lying and feeling ashamed often go hand in hand.

You don't because your partner has asked you to not post about them

Some people don't want to show their faces online. And when they feel that strongly about it, they ask the people they know not to post about them. It's a blanket rule for everyone, but especially you, who are most like to post about them.

Problem? Some people genuinely dislike social media. And then there are the shitty ones who purposefully use this excuse to hide the fact they're hiding from the world. Hiding their secret romance. Hiding their secret affairs. Hiding how they feel because of reasons they know will hurt the people they're about. It's hard to know which one it is.

You can't because of safety

And some face threats to their life, and posting on social media only puts a target on their back. You might find this an extreme example, but even in the case of custody arrangements, people can't risk their ex finding them. Or seeing things about their life that can be used against them in court.

Problem? In that case, I don't see one. Some people have issues beyond our comprehension. And when they ask us to respect that legal situation, that's the dealt hand we have to respect.

You might have gathered; actions speak louder than words

This isn't about posting pictures of your partner on the internet. 

It's not about loving social media or hating it.

This is about what you do and what you don't do. And what your lack of actions says about the feelings you have buried deep down.

You can pass off your inaction with 'reasons'. You can pretend to have logical reasons for avoiding posting about your partner. If those reasons help you sleep at night, do you.

But you can't deny the simple correlation between action and inaction. When you care about your partner, you post about them on social media.

And if you don't want to buy into society's views on this, what about your partner? What are they going to think when you post pictures of the sunrise, your morning eggs, or your workout progress, and not about them?

What message does it send to them?

Well, you don't need to guess. It tells them you're ashamed of them. Even if you aren't, you can't blame them for assuming so. 

I ask you; is that the message you want them to take away? Really?!

And if it's not, do something about it.