PDA has taken on a new meaning
Public Displays of Affection (PDA) is a term that has taken on a new meaning in the last decade. It used to refer to people performing demonstrable acts of affection in public when the more prudent members of society would argue it should be kept to the confines of the bedroom. However, now PDA could be used to refer to the social media where someone proudly proclaims they love their partner to all their uninterested followers. We have all seen the post and the majority of us scroll straight past it when we see it’s the usual culprit. Just like most forms of communication via social media it comes off as void of any true compassion and the words render hollow.
People often ask Louisa how she has stayed with me for so long as they can’t imagine me being “cute” or “romantic”, especially as (in general) I am not a big fan of PDA. There is little proof online to show that I am a doting boyfriend and so if that is the metric used to measure the romantic ability of a person I understand how they may come to that conclusion. But one thing Louisa and I have in common with most other long-term relationships is that we are fairly private when it comes to our relationship.
There’s good reason for that too. Firstly, I am under no illusion that people are so interested in our relationship that they log on to their preferred social media platform to see what we are up to. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I feel secure enough in the relationship to not need constant gratification from my instagram followers. I know what Louisa and I have and no amount of likes will change that. I have often shared this opinion with my friends and I often get called “old fashioned” as a result, but then we start to put my theory to the test and use real life examples they soon come around. We all know someone who posts about their girlfriend/boyfriend more times than we have hot dinners. We get it! You have a partner now… good for you! We are all happy for you but spare us the daily Shakespearean proclamations of love. Take it easy at the start, slow and steady wins the race.
I have noticed most of the couples I know who are guilty of oversharing and throwing their love in our faces end rather abruptly. All of a sudden you notice that you haven’t heard from the people in question in a while and so you go on their profile and all the pictures have disappeared. It’s as if the now ex never even existed and the relationship was simply a figment of your imagination. We all know what comes next. Murmurs of deception, adultery or plain old incompatibility start to trickle through and you realise that the grandiose and constant love posts came from a deep rooted and justifiable insecurity. We were told this was going to be a love story for the ages but it was ultimately short lived.
So the next time you feel as though you want to confess your undying love to the world ask yourself this: do I want to post this because I truly love this person and can no longer hold it in or am I posting this to fool others and more importantly myself into thinking that the relationship I have is more profound than it really is? I know it’s hard to distinguish love from infatuation at first, but doing so might just make PDA that bit more bearable.
By Seb Siracusa
