It begins innocently enough. You’re scrolling through your feed after a long day, and there it is: a perfectly edited reel of a couple dancing on a rooftop under fairy lights. The caption reads, “Find someone who looks at you like this.” You smile, maybe even sigh, and then glance at your partner, who’s currently snoring softly with a half-eaten plate of noodles by the bed.

That’s the quiet moment when comparison slips in, unnoticed but corrosive.

We’ve always compared ourselves to others, but the scale and intimacy of social media have made it relentless. Earlier, it was the neighbour’s new car or the cousin’s extravagant wedding at some fort in Udaipur. Now it’s someone’s romantic getaway to Santorini or a husband surprising his wife with a flash mob in the living room. What once belonged to cinema now unfolds on our phones, presented as attainable and even expected.

But what we’re really seeing is performance. A flying kiss from a balcony, a rented limousine on your birthday, a thousand roses on your anniversary — these are curated moments, not lived realities. They’re staged for the camera, rehearsed for maximum emotional impact, and edited for perfection. We know this, of course, yet the line between knowing and feeling is thin. We might understand it’s content, but part of us still wonders why our own lives don’t look like that.

The problem isn’t admiration, it’s aspiration without context.

Every relationship exists in the quiet spaces between grand gestures. It’s in managing bills, comforting one another after bad days, and figuring out whose turn it is to buy groceries. Love, in its truest form, often looks like teamwork, not theatrics. 

In India, social media has collided with a culture that already worships spectacle. Weddings resemble film sets, complete with drone shots and choreographed sangeets, and the pressure to perform affection becomes another unspoken demand. Across the ocean, the story isn’t much different. TikTok is filled with partners orchestrating elaborate surprises, breakfast trays, designer gifts, and coordinated outfits. It’s sweet, until you start feeling like your own relationship is somehow smaller, less special, less enough.

But real love isn’t built for an audience. It unfolds in unglamorous hours when you’re too tired to talk, when you forgive a small mistake, when you sit together in silence without needing to impress. Sometimes all your partner can give you is a goodnight kiss before collapsing into bed. And that, too, is love. It’s not camera-ready, but it’s real.

We rarely see what lies behind the viral clips. The couple smiling in that anniversary post may have argued five minutes earlier. The influencer who thanks her husband in every caption might be holding on by a thread. Behind the filters, there are bills, exhaustion, compromises, and sometimes loneliness. But none of that trends.

“Touch grass,” as the internet likes to say. Step outside the curated glow of your screen and return to the messy, human version of love, the one that doesn’t need likes to feel valid. You can still dream of grand gestures and fairytale romance, but balance is key. We need to hold on to fantasy with one hand and reality with the other.

So the next time you see a cinematic reel of someone being serenaded on a yacht, pause before comparing. Remember that behind every perfect frame is a story you’ll never fully know. And then look around, at your partner, your life, your ordinary day. If there’s warmth there, if there’s effort, if there’s peace, that’s the kind of romance worth keeping.