Imagine this, you are on a first date with the “person of your dreams.” The only reason you know they are is because you stalked their Instagram profile the entire night before. Though as the date starts, more and more you realize they are nothing like the person they portray to be on social media, completely warping this idealized vision you have in your head. Annoying, right?

Relationships are a lot of work, that’s the point; establishing a connection with another person takes time and patience to create. We must be willing to work hard in order to make something worthwhile. Technology has changed our relationships into spontaneous late-night texts and snapchats of our ceilings, which is why I believe technology has ruined relationships, both romantically and socially.

Social media has taken up every form besides being “social.” Today the number of followers we have on Instagram has influenced how we view ourselves and our worth, imposing the impossible standards we feel we need to live up to. Because of that, we present our best selves on our social media platforms.

We advertise the best selfies, the cutest group pictures, and the most flattering ideals we want others to see. It makes sense; why would anyone want others to see them as anything less than their best possible selves? This creates a false reality that has become all too realistic in our day and age: We compare our true selves, our reality, to someone else’s highlight reel.

Even when we think we create meaningful relationships through social media, they seem to not matter outside of these platforms. I’ve met people online who I’ve talked to for days, weeks or even months through texting, but when I see them in the halls in school, I’m invisible. The lack of interaction in person not only made me question if I mattered to them but if the words they said through a screen correlated with their real feelings.

Relationships have become disposable; time and time again we create bonds with others, only to have them “Ghost,” which according to Urban Dictionary is defined as when a person cuts off all communication with their friends or the person they are dating, by avoiding phone calls, social media, or public interaction with said person. Norms like this have become a mainstream part of our day to day lives, viewed as something that “just happens,” and is “not a big deal.”

That’s the problem with our society today, social media has provoked a kind of cowardice that we utilize to avoid creating meaningful connections with people whom we often find “disposable.” People feel they have the freedom to say what they want on social media without consequence, yet this liberation we find in a tiny screen never amounts to a freedom in physicality. The only way to have a true relationship through social media is if it transpires into our everyday lives, not just staying behind a phone screen.