Publicly posting about a new relationship used to be the thing to look forward to.

While I was never the type to post long paragraphs about the person I was dating, I relished the opportunity to show off my person on the ‘gram. For whatever reason, it made things seem real and serious to my younger self. And, TBH, I definitely enjoyed the subtle ego boost I got when I read all the comments about how cute we were together.

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A post shared by Tyler Cameron (@tylerjcameron3) on Jun 4, 2019 at 11:21am PDT

As I’ve gotten older, however, sharing my relationship on Instagram seems less and less important. In fact, I’d almost prefer to keep my boyfriend off my feed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to hide the fact that I’m in a relationship. My boyfriend often appears on my stories and I’d have no qualms about posting a particularly cute photo of us. But my motivation to keep the rest of the world updated on my relationship status has decreased tremendously.

Keep scrolling for all the reasons why I’d rather keep my relationship (mostly) off my Instagram.

It’s a Lot of Pressure

Perhaps most significantly, publicly posting about your relationship is a lot of pressure. Openly declaring how important someone is to you invites a lot of comments about your relationship. Hearing outside comments—good and bad—can put a lot of pressure on you and your S.O. to maintain a picture-perfect image. It becomes part of your “to-do” list to prove to everyone how happy you are, instead of simply enjoying your relationship.

Not to mention, there’s always the struggle of what to do if the relationship ends. If you post too early and you end up breaking up, you either have to leave the painful memories on your social media or go through the equally painful process of deleting them. While I don’t believe my boyfriend and I are going to split, I don’t want social media to even enter my mind when it comes to the future of our relationship. Relationships can be challenging on their own, I certainly don’t need the added pressure of the internet to stress me out.

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A post shared by chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) on Jun 8, 2019 at 2:46pm PDT

You’re Inviting Other People Into Your Dating Life

I’m a strong believer that the more people you tell about your personal life, the more you’re inviting outside opinions into your world. That might sound cynical, but it’s the truth—the more people who know your personal information, the more people who feel like they have a right to comment on your comings and goings. While I want my close friends to know every detail of my dating life, I don’t feel the need to invite the opinions of strangers and acquaintances into my relationship.

While I don’t think anyone’s checking my Instagram page like I’m Beyoncé, I don’t want anyone questioning why I haven’t posted about my boyfriend in a while. And I certainly don’t want anyone negatively speculating about my relationship, either behind my back or to my face. Social media is supposed to be fun. Feeling like I have to maintain an image of my relationship to deflect nosy questions from followers sucks all the energy out of posting.

It Becomes an Unnecessary Issue

Once you start posting about your significant other, it becomes yet another facet of your relationship that you have to maintain. It opens the door to conversations about why you posted when they didn’t and vice versa, turning your time together into an argument about an arbitrary gauge of your commitment. I never want to spend valuable time with my boyfriend worrying about my presence on his social media, or his presence on mine. While it’s hard to avoid that conversation nowadays, I want to do everything I can to keep from placing too much importance on our social media. Our relationship exists in real life—that should be the only thing that really matters.

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A post shared by John Krasinski (@johnkrasinski) on Jan 27, 2019 at 3:26pm PST

It’s Boring

I won’t mince words here—posting about your relationship is pretty darn boring. While #relationshipgoals used to be all the rage, those posts have pretty much lost their appeal in recent years. No one really cares how happy you and your S.O. are, and they tend to be pretty cynical about how much you care about each other, anyway. Relationship posts tend to be glossed over with a skeptical eye. Heck, I don’t even like seeing them! To me, there’s not a lot of interest in just saying you’re happy in your relationship. I post sparingly to begin with, I’d rather save for posts for something that will actually catch people’s eye, not something that will make them roll their eyes in disgust.

It’s Nice to Keep Things Private

While I have plenty of issues with making my relationship a public topic, I also genuinely enjoy keeping things between the two of us. Sweet moments and romantic gestures don’t always need to be shared. Sometimes it’s nice to keep those really special moments between the two of us, not us and hundreds of other people. Knowing that we have memories that only we know about makes them extra special. It’s an added layer of affection and connection between us, and one that I really enjoy maintaining.

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A post shared by Lili Reinhart (@lilireinhart) on Feb 14, 2019 at 10:07am PST

It Doesn’t Actually Mean Anything

Last, but not least, posting about your S.O. on social media doesn’t really mean anything. In fact, I’ve found that the couples who post obsessively about each other, complete with annoying, lovey-dovey captions, are often the ones who have the most problems in their relationship. While Instagram posts can create an illusion that everything is fantastic in your relationship, it doesn’t actually reflect your feelings for each other or your commitment to your romance. If it doesn’t mean anything, what’s the point of posting? I know where my S.O. and I stand in our relationship—I don’t need to prove anything to anyone else.

Still want to show your relationship off on the ‘gram? Click HERE for the eight most Instagrammable date ideas.

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