Your need to share is killing the romance.
Social media addicts who can’t help but tease a blossoming relationship to their followers — a move that’s called a “soft launch” in online circles — could wind up tanking their chances at love, experts warn.
You’ve seen it before: An Instagram post showing a mysterious hand at dinner, or two wine glasses at a bar — subtle signals the poster is off the market.
These mysterious moves may seem safe, but relationship whizzes warn that rushing — or even hinting too soon — about a new beau can derail your bond’s natural course.
It could even breed “distrust,” according to Ashwini Nadkarni, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
As Nadkarni recently told the Daily Mail, soft launching “effectively means gauging the world’s perceptions of your relationship before you’ve had a chance to be explicit about its true nature.”
The doctor added that in the first few dates or months into a new relationship, couples are often “assessing how others will react” to their union.
She went on to say that the “influence of others’ perception of your relationship can potentially trigger feelings of distrust.”
She posed a question for new partners to consider: “If the world reacts in a negative way, do you trust that your partner won’t be bothered by this? Do you trust the strength of your connection to your partner?”
Healthy connections begin with vulnerability on both sides, Nadkarni asserted.
She noted that relying on your partner to be “confident in this time period [and sustain confidence in yourself] that you won’t get hurt” is vital — and “necessary to both build a sense of safety and vulnerability.”
If you inadvertently behave with “distrust,” Nadkarni explained that this can “ruin the relationship” before it even has the chance to take off.
Another possible drawback of a soft launch? Your new suitor might not appreciate being kept under wraps — they could want a full-blown hard launch instead. PSA: you could be heading into the notorious situationship territory.
Dr. Marisa T. Cohen, PhD, LMFT, a dating and relationship expert at dating app Hily, also informed the outlet that if this is the case, your new partner may feel like your lives “are not being completely integrated and may even question the status of their relationship.”
She also explained that posting a cryptic shot of your date’s limbs isn’t as casual and harmless as you think, and can be seen as performative.
Kintija Sluka, Head of PR & Performance at One March PR, also backed this warning, explaining the social media pitfalls of soft launching to the publication.
She stressed that from a social media perspective, soft launching “can actually create way more pressure than people realize,” and it’s not as harmless as you might still think.
Rather than simply “just enjoying getting to know someone,” you might find yourself “putting on a performance,” she warned, noting that ultimately, “you’re testing the waters with your followers first” and foremost.
“You’re no longer just dating the person, you’re also managing a low-key PR campaign about your love life, and that can be a lot for some people,” she continued.
The PR pro noticed that “we’ve trained ourselves to think in terms of engagement and audience reaction.” However, she emphasized that “not every part of life” needs to be “filtered through that lens,” especially not “something as personal as a new relationship.”
If your relationship is still undefined and in a confusing or cryptic stage (or as Taylor Swift sings in “So Long, London,” when “you’re not sure if he wants to be there”), Sluka advised hitting pause before posting anything about it.
Finding yourself “already worried about how your followers will respond before you’ve even defined” what the relationship is? Sluka suggests that “it might be worth stepping back and asking who you’re really doing it for.”
Overall, that classic three-month rule about keeping a new romance under wraps might be worth following— especially if you just matched on Hinge and haven’t met yet, hit it off with someone at a bar last night, or have only been dating for a few weeks, these experts say.
The Supremes’ lyrical advice in the 1966 hit “You Can’t Hurry Love” seems to still ring true today.
Read the full article here
