The night I realised my Facebook friends should know my relationship isn’t always perfect

Valentine’s Day ramps up our quotidian levels of online schmaltz in an extreme extension of social networking’s primary impulse: crafted illusion

On Valentine’s Day your daily scroll on social media becomes clogged with the goo oozing from photos of cards propped up against Prosecco bottles, with messages ranging from the traditional “I love you”; to the post-modern “I’m glad I swiped right for you”; and the hipster “You’re a tw*t but I still think you’re hot”.

No sooner has said card passed through the loved one’s finger tips than it is being shared with 458 Instagram followers and to an audience of billions across the globe via #valentinesday #valentinesgift #valentinesforever. And that’s not to mention the slushy snog selfies and the his ‘n’ hers back-packs on a choreographed, "romantic" walk.

Valentine’s Day ramps up our quotidian levels of online schmaltz in an extreme extension of social networking’s primary impulse: crafted illusion. I too have been the Love Brag. I realised this when people started to comment on my relationship over social media: “You’re such a dream pair!”, “You two lovebirds you!”, “You guys are always having a great time”.

The guilt crept up on me – I’d unwittingly created an image of the “perfect couple” simply by sharing happy holiday pictures and car-aoke Snapchats. Of course, those moments are real and fun, but I’ve come to see that by sharing them I am responsible for directing my own rom-com for the world to watch.

Social media doesn’t allow for the deleted scenes. I get VERY hangry. My other half gets bothered if I use my phone too much. We bicker when he watches ANYTHING Beyoncé without me. We have blazing rows about the difficult stuff – a cross that every relationship must bear.

Grasping the shallowness of social media may be easy, but it doesn’t make us immune to its effects. Oversharing in the opposite direction – documenting every tear and tantrum – isn’t the antidote to this modern fallacy. Deactivate your accounts? Unnecessary.

But, chipping away from within could work. Destabilising the digital rat-race by opting for a more honest approach sounds good to me. My opportunity to test it arrived on a day in which my partner and I warred relentlessly and then fell into an impromptu, hilarious night out. Obviously there was no getting away from the fact the day had been 80 per cent tears and screams, 20 per cent jokes and laughs.

Whereas once I might have posted a picture with no reference to the bad bits – I decided to swap artifice for admission. One line, “We’ve argued all day because builders and dust and strange men using our toilet”, was enough to convey a reality that other couples could identify with. I can confirm the world did not implode.

We all indulge the facade, to varying degrees, but, we could engage with balance and wisdom. For every #blessed there’s a #cursed – and you know it.