Does Painful Love Equate To Grander Love? A Deep Dive Into Toxic Relationships of The East and West
Life has so many complicated things. One of which is love, or more specifically the dynamic of love between couples. Granted that dynamic is built upon so many things like culture, mental state, personality, and upbringing. But no matter what the defying factor is in the dynamic of love, things can get real toxic, real fast. This has been severely prevalent lately with couples that made it to headlines both Locally and internationally.
Headline Couples
Starting with the international couple, MGK and Megan Fox have been making headlines for quite some time now since they went public with their relationship back in 2020. Most recently about a month ago, MGK proposed to Megan with quite a peculiar ring that sparked a debate online about toxicity in love. In short, MGK said that the ring is designed to cause pain if taken off. That made the public go haywire online commenting stuff like “that’s low key toxic” and “anything made to hurt women in order for them to stay around is toxic and misogynistic.”
On the other way darker end of the spectrum, a couple in Egypt made headlines for all the wrong reasons and sparked a social media outrage on their wedding day. The video filmed at the wedding shows the husband beating his wife while they are literally on their wedding aisle.
The story was covered by most news outlets and the Egyptian public was split in opinion online with some men saying that “The man was within his right to beat the woman cause it’s his wife after all.” While the majority completely denounced the act of violence and demanded a public apology and the interference of the women’s rights council which has happened.
Striking Resemblance
Is there a resemblance? Yes, bare with me. Culture and background aside since there are clearly huge differences on these fronts. A good prolonged look at the situations in the headlines will reveal a core issue which is the forever flawed human perception of love. This can easily be traced back to multiple things like the media and entertainment feeding us the narrative of love being this really intense, addictive, intoxicating feeling that everyone should experience no matter what, and if it is not intense and soul-crushing it won’t count as true love. The whole thing of turning a human emotion into a highly sought-after commodity makes all of us think of it as something we have to have and we can’t live without, and also, we want to be just like the way it is on TV. That’s why the controlling or ownership in the love dynamics in both publicized relationships feels justified and just about right for some, and completely wrong for others. Making the whole toxicity in love glow and make headlines all the time.
The Afterglow
Why do these seemingly toxic relationships glow the way they do? Garnering this huge reaction online both good and bad? For many simple reasons. Pointing out the obvious here, these relationships were highly publicized, and with social media and the newfound human nature to be in everyone’s business and feel the need to give our two cents on everything. Of course, these dynamics will shine and spread around like wildfire.
But if we look at things just a tad bit deeply, the actual reason the reaction was the way it was is that people, in general, have a huge misconception about love and being in a relationship due to the culture, personality, and upbringing mentioned before. In a way, we all try to see our future with a significant other through these highly publicized couples. The public tends to see them as a case study to self-learn how to manage a relationship, show love, and try to understand the meaning of love in general.
