Magazines & The Relationship Killer

 

*source:www.magxone.com

 

If the screaming PINK and ORANGE cover lines with bold interesting headlines on mass-circulation magazines don’t get to you, the mixed messages about celebrities and their break ups and make ups inside will…well, that’s if you love magazines as much as I do. Which makes me ask myself just one question: What are the effects that magazines have on our relationships?

The other day I was reading cosmopolitan magazine and I realised just how blunt and harsh the journalist who write these stories are, it is so obvious that they don’t care about what they write about or who they are hurting as long as they make profit out of the article they wrote. Some may argue and say that’s the price one pays for being a celeb but my point is they don’t consider that what they write is a conflict on someone’s personal life.

It is so funny because a lot of people want their relationships to be the same as ones of celebrities…well, at least the good ones- not the Rihannas and Chris browns of this world who come with all that drama. Celebrities are presented as role models which readers can decide their own behaviour which in media is defined by Agenda-Setting,for example: "Love Quiz; are you a serial dater like Kim Kardashian or an uber-committed like Beyoncé" As much as I like my Cosmo I never ever do the so called ‘love quiz’ because I think it is ridiculous.

All I know is that journalists and magazine editors just want to do their job by selling copies and entertaining the readers. So, if you are going to sit there comparing you and your significant other to some celebrity couple, just remember that love is nothing like you see in magazines-every relationship is different…and THAT article, well it came in the cost of someone’s tears…don’t believe everything you read dear

Love does not envy

*picture sourced from inkspirationalmessages.com

If you could ask anyone who knows me, they would tell you that without a doubt I’m a total sucker for love and anything that comes with it (love songs, celebrity couples, romantic novels, chick flicks and so on). I’ve always been keen on the idea of love and being in love even before I started dating…so you can imagine what expectations I had in mind for my first boyfriend-but that’s a story for another day. I would cut out pictures of hearts and roses and even highlight the word ‘love’ on my dictionary. (I was 12. Don’t judge me).

It was only when I grew up and was in my late teens when I realised how most girls love chick flicks as much as I did and that’s because such movies portray this idea that every guy should buy you roses and take you out on romantic dates and you guys get married and live happily ever after .Movies have led many of us to believe that love is characterised by how you look, how much he earns, how tall he is, and how you guys can meet today and suddenly come to a conclusion that you both have found “the one”. They have silently made us believe that allowing someone to mistreat us could be forgiven with the words “I’m sorry” written in the sky.

What they fail to teach us is that we are all imperfect. There is that moment in our life where expectations and fantasies that we have created for other people do not happen and its okay. Relationships are not based on lies, appearance, money or expectations. A healthy relationship is characterized by honesty, trust, communication, true love and yes, even those little arguments about whose turn it is to wash the dishes. In reality, the people we love WILL disappoint us as much as we will disappoint them.

So, instead of watching a movie and dating a guy similar to Edward or Jacob from Twighlight, rather wait for the relationship that will put all the movies and chick flicks to shame and lasts way longer than 2hours!