The social construct of relationships in the 21st century has created a set of conflicting emotions and outcomes that have become toxic and scary. A couple of problematic issues between failed relationships and the social structure of the 21st century showcase a broken generation coming from broken homes with an unwillingness to wait for anything, a knack for perfection, and delusional expectations. While every relationship is unique, with many different situations, outcomes and personalities, the views expressed here try to find the root cause of many failed relationships nowadays.

One of the many relationship problems we face is that people are too caught up in romanticism, more particularly 21st century romanticism. One of its traits is what we colloquially call "the game", the dating game to be precise. When evaluating whether someone is right or not to be a partner, people play hide and seek, not revealing too much of themselves too quickly, sometimes concealing their whole personality behind personas they create for themselves usually in an attempt to be liked by this person or to be appealing enough for them. In some cases, people are simply trying to protect themselves from being hurt, which plays out in each person hiding behind masks that they lose themselves in.

There is a difference between putting your best foot forward when getting to know a potential partner and having a persona that you portray, but since we’re all humans, being liked is a prerequisite. Knowing the difference between these two is key. However, if the process of getting to know each other is based on half-truths, can a relationship last? After a while, we start questioning who this person is. Normally, the hope is that the many attributes you like outweigh the ones you don’t, but in a world fixated on perfection, “red flags” ruin good relationships because we’ve already made up our mind about how the relationship will turn out before it’s even started.

We know we are near perfect, aren’t we? But that other person? No, they’re not even close to what we’ll settle for! Such relationships play out by keeping the physical attachment as a source of connection, while people genuinely care for each other deeply because of the sexual relationship built, in most instances there isn’t much else keeping them together. This is how you find people dating and marrying people they don’t like, the persona and the individual have conflicting emotions.

The second social relationship problem continues with the idea of romanticism but in this case is the projection of social media. Social media shows us perfect personalities that we base our assumptions and conclusions on. Although we know that filters work and that cameras enhance picture quality, we can't help but fall for the psychological trap of building people up, constantly seeing how perfectly formed their lives are. We start to believe that that’s how they live everyday — it's not simply about the looks but also about how good of a life we think they’re living that infatuates us.

This plays into romantic behavioural patterns that extend beyond social media and into real life. We want perfect-looking relationships displayed on social media, or we want that perfect person with perfect pictures, a perfect house, the dream car, and all else that projects perfection.

We know very little of the demons that lurk in those perfect forms, the insecurities that lay beneath the surface of materialism, these are people we know — probably went to school with. After all, what makes them so special that you cannot live equally as good a life as they are and have the perceived perfect relationship displayed all over your feed, stories, reels?

One of the many lies on social media is the idea of endless options. While there are considerable options out there, how many of them are actually genuine, how many of them are true? Do they like us or merely the idea of us? Finding new people these days is so easy but also very dangerous since everyone can easily jump from one person to another. It’s become the norm to not be phased by failed relationships — we simply move on to the next not realising how far off we are from what is true and what is not.

Each person is looking out for themselves in the hope that the other person cares enough for them to start caring as much as they do. We’re greedy with our love and rightfully so, but we must remember that every relationship is a union that requires both parties to put in effort and work. The question we have to ask ourselves is: am I doing enough?