I told my partner I was hungry for an orange and all he did was pass it over to me. According to TikTok, does that mean I need to break up with him?
The internet is diagnosing love, and your relationship might be next on the chopping block.
Peeling an orange is no considerable feat. If you’re like me, you might take it to another level – peeling each and every stringy pith until you’re left with nothing but the smoothest fruit. An act that certainly doesn’t call for any praise.
However, the current trend on TikTok says the metric for relationship health is how we peel an orange. Social media is no stranger to a relationship trend, but have we taken it too far?
Teen magazines and burning questions
I was never allowed to buy teen magazines – you know the ones that had posters of Justin Bieber and the latest Hollywood buzz? Yet I always made sure to flip to the last few pages before I left the bookstore. It was there that I’d find the issue’s monthly quiz or dare I say the answers to my burning preteen questions:
“What’s your ideal date?”
“What does your favourite colour say about your love life?”
“21 signs he loves you.”
It was the large-scale affirmation we seek on TikTok reduced to a single page at the back of a magazine.
Despite what some may say, there was no significance to my answer or score. But I still found myself identifying with what I landed on. Or, if we’re being honest, I’d try to change my answers if I didn’t like where I ended up.
Relationships and social media
In a 2019 study done by the Pew Research Centre, data showed that 80 per cent of American social media users often see other users posting about their relationships.
Likewise, in a 2022 report conducted by Statistics Canada, researchers said, “online interactions are associated with greater tendencies to compare oneself with others.”
So if we intend to live up to what we see around us, then it is not the act of peeling or not peeling that we care to discuss. Rather we care far more about how each response compares to those online. One’s ability to adequately display affection has become a competition linked to hashtags and a trend.
With no context or understanding of someone’s relationship, we give our followers on social media the power to determine who to cut and who to keep.
What can we learn from peeling an orange?
Your partner’s response to the orange may give insight into unmet needs or lack of emotional communication. It might highlight their willingness to do the little things or spark curiosity towards how they naturally show affection.
But I believe it’s our volition to broadcast our partners’ response on social media that needs reconsideration. We must reallocate the power we give to the courtroom of TikTok users. The comment section is not a glorified jury for your orange-peeling partner to stand before.
Looking back, had I let the magazine quizzes dictate my actions toward the topic in question, my life would look a lot different. You’d find me with blonde hair, living in a different country, forcing myself to like the colour purple, and wondering if my style accurately reflects my personality.
If a teen magazine from 2010 published a quiz titled: Would they peel an orange for you? Find out if your partner loves you. I wouldn’t bat an eye. I might start walking around with oranges in my purse, but I’m not sure that says much about love.
