Social media and the perfect life

[DottySay]

Anyone know anyone who’s social media life was not as posted and was less than perfect in reality? (I’m just trying to make myself feel better about all the glossy photos I see )

A friend from school was forever posting about her extravagant life with her fiancé. Turned out she was cheating on him and ended the engagement a few months later. Going from her online accounts you’d have thought she was with her perfect man.

The most secure people I know in relationships rarely , if ever , post up gushy stuff or even pics of their partner, it’s usually work stuff , music/film, or politics or maybe ‘scenery’ or hobby stuff. I often wonder if those constantly posting such relationships stuff have hugely insecure partners.

@tarasmalatarocks

The most secure people I know in relationships rarely , if ever , post up gushy stuff or even pics of their partner, it’s usually work stuff , music/film, or politics or maybe ‘scenery’ or hobby stuff. I often wonder if those constantly posting such relationships stuff have hugely insecure partners.

I must be terribly secure!

Although I get endlessly irritated (irrationally) that my political posts are largely ignored, but post a cute picture of the cat and I'm on 70 likes before I can blink. Poor Dh doesn't get much of a look in!

Yes.

A couple who are always posting hearts and "my love" type posts about each other. She despises him and he is cheating on her.

They also post heartwarming family photos of the perfect family. I have been in their house when these photos were taken and what the photos don't reveal is the shouting and screaming and tears that took place immediately prior to the photo being taken.

I used to be really close friends with them - we went in holidays together, spent christmases together. We really were more like family and our children referred to each other as 'cousins'.

Now? I never see them. Because he told me he was in love with me and I realised he was starting to try and manipulate me and our friendship to piss his wife off. There was no point in telling her because she is so desperate to not lose the image of the perfect marriage and family, she just turns a blind eye to what he does and loathes him instead. So I have nothing to do with them anymore.

I’m mainly Facebook friends with my family and old friends I rarely see. It’s a great way of keeping in touch. We’ve all been posting old photos we’ve found during lockdown clearouts. I keep up with regular friends face to face and on what’s app.
I have collected a few Facebook flaunted over the years but have filtered them so I don’t have to see all the crap. Occasionally have a look to see if they’ve changed, I have a mum to two z list child stars ( extremely cringeworthy since she posts videos of them singing - they can’t sing). She used to post photos of all Xmas presents wrapped and stacked as well as the usual Easter Egg mountain. A girl who has yet to get over her cheating husband ( it’s five years since they divorced for God’s age and still the bitterness persists). The standard look what we’ve bought friend and the born again gym bunny who clocks in every morning at the gym having lost half her body weight a couple of years ago (rumour has it it was all down to gastric band).
The rest are just normal, posting pictures of animals, family events and funny stuff.

Anyone can be fake on SM. No-one has a glossy, perfect life. It's BS.

I would actually suggest that the people who advertise their lives in this way probably have innate issues behind the airbrushed photos and the forced smiles. The people who are leading happy, fulfilled lives are too busy doing just that to post perfection on SM.

Yes, this kind of shite is why I left fb and only follow a very limited number of specific accounts on Instagram. Guess what, I haven't missed anything at all that's important, the important people in your lives tell you about events/big news directly, and if they don't then they probably weren't good friends in the first place. Highly recommend just binning it off if you don't get any joy from it.

DP is still on fb - much as it pisses him off - and has quite a few prolific posters as friends who love a public proclamation of eternal love etc.... he keeps himself entertained by calling it out - eg "Happy Birthday to the most wonderful husband in the world etc etc" DP will comment underneath "oh what a shame you can't be together on his birthday, sorry to hear that" inevitable response "oh no we are together" "oh right. Why are you writing happy birthday to him on here then?" .....tumbleweed.....

Someone I know has just posted a happy family photo saying how wonderful his DW is. She’s put him through absolute hell lately, having cheated and gaslighted him about it. I find myself unable to comment or like on either of their photos any more, as I know it’s all lies and I don’t want to be complicit in his degradation by going along with it.

I think you can be too honest on facebook. I posted various self-help books I was reading on fb. Or audibles. The unexpected Joy of the ordinary for one. I enjoyed it. Gretchen Rubin's happier at home. They didn't change my life but I enjoyed them. My close friend told me that it looked like I was searching for instruction on 'how to live'. I was surprised. I feel like I know how to live but that I"m open to whatever wisdom is out there. So weird to be brought up short with somebody else's view of us.

I won't stop posting things that interested me though, they interested me. And that was the point.

It isn't just social media though.
My pre- internet childhood was entirely sunny and I played happily with my little brother and skipped along merrily wherever we went. How do I know? Because that is when the photos were taken.
Very few people choose to document the sad times, the grumpy times, the rainy times in photos.

A friend of mine was bullied at school so she always posts perfect lifestyle photos as a way of showing the old bullies they didn't bring her down. Her life is farrrr from perfect.

@MarkRuffaloCrumble

Someone I know has just posted a happy family photo saying how wonderful his DW is. She’s put him through absolute hell lately, having cheated and gaslighted him about it. I find myself unable to comment or like on either of their photos any more, as I know it’s all lies and I don’t want to be complicit in his degradation by going along with it.

There's a definite link. For me, 25 years ago, being happy was so intertwined with appearing to be happy that I couldn't have disentangled them. In the run up to leaving my x 14 years ago, I suddenly heard a voice say ''you care more about appearing to be happy than being happy'' and I had the epiphany I needed to have. But it wasn't an immediate recovery because Having Nothing, and Starting Again From Scratch (with no job,house,husband,wealth) felt a little 'shameful' to me if I'm honest and it was something I had to work through. It took a long time before I looked back and felt proud of myself.

One of my work colleagues was telling me she felt inadequate as a stay at home mum with the baby and wanted to show everyone she was having a great time and doing loads with the baby but in reality she felt lonely and isolated. Social media is a tiny snapshot of someone's life although it doesn't always seem like it as we are bombarded with images. I think FB is to blame for alot of mental health issues. If you can deactivate your social media for a while, you will feel much better

Someone has posted about his wife's birthday today. How she is the world's best wife. She chucked him out last week for cheating, and she cheated on him 2 years ago, however if you just looked at FB you'd think they were the most in love pair ever.

Neither I nor DW are on social media. Family WhatsApp is about it. If someone needs to communicate they pop over or pick up the phone. Life is pretty good actually.

Manolin that's reminded me - the couple I mentioned were always tagging each other on fb. You live in the same fucking house. Don't perform your relationship on fb!!

I find this hilarious. I saw a happy anniversary wonderful husband post from someone who is miserable and strongly suspects he’s been cheating on her for years! Another posing for date night photos with her rock when they split a week later and then she started posting all the ‘strong single woman’ motivational quotes! I always see these gushy posts as a sign that there are serious issues.