Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now? The changing politics of modern relationships

If someone so much as says “my boyf–”, on social media, they’re muted. There’s nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become “my boyfriend”-ified suddenly. This is probably because, for so long, it felt like we were living in what one of my favourite Substackers calls Boyfriend Land: a world where women’s online identities centred around the lives of their partners, a situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man, with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and, if you were serious enough, financial gain.

However, more recently, there’s been a pronounced shift in the way people showcase their relationships online: far from fully hard-launching romantic partners, straight women are opting for subtler signs: a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner, or the back of someone’s head. On the more confusing end, you have faces blurred out of wedding pictures or entire professionally edited videos with the fiancé conveniently cropped out of all shots. Women are obscuring their partner’s face when they post, as if they want to erase the fact they exist without actually not posting them.

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So, what gives? Are people embarrassed of their boyfriends now? Or is something more complicated going on? To me, it feels like the result of women wanting to straddle two worlds: one where they can receive the social benefits of having a partner, but also not appear so boyfriend-obsessed that they come across quite culturally loser-ish. “They want the prize and celebration of partnership, but understand the norminess of it,” says Zoé Samudzi, writer and activist. In other words, in an era of widespread heterofatalism, women don’t want to be seen as being all about their man, but they also want the clout that comes with being partnered up.

But it’s not all about image. When I did a call out on Instagram to my 65,000 followers, plenty of women told me that they were in fact superstitious. Some feared the “evil eye”, a belief that their happy relationships would spark a jealousy so strong in other people that it could end the relationship. Others were concerned about their relationship ending, and then being stuck with the posts. “I was in a relationship for 12 years and never once posted him or talked about him online. We broke up recently, and I don’t think I will ever post a man,” says Nikki, 38. “Even though I am a romantic, I still feel like men will embarrass you even 12 years in, so claiming them feels so lame.”

But there was an overwhelming sense from single and partnered women alike that, regardless of the relationship, being with a man was an almost guilty thing to do. On The Delusional Diaries Podcast, fronted by two New York-based influencers, Halley and Jaz, they discuss whether having a boyfriend is “lame” now. “Why does having a boyfriend feel Republican?” read a top comment, with 12,000 likes. “Boyfriends are out of style. They won’t come back in until they start acting right,” read another, with 10,000 likes. In essence, “having a boyfriend typically takes hits on a woman’s aura”, as one commenter claimed. Funnily enough, both of these hosts have partners, which is something I often see online. Even partnered women will lament men and heterosexuality – partly in solidarity with other women, but also because it is now fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend-girl.

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It’s not just in these women’s imaginations – audiences are icked out by seeing too much boyfriend content, myself included it seems (as indicated by my liberal use of the mute button). When author and Vogue contributor Stephanie Yeboah hard-launched her boyfriend on social media, she lost hundreds of followers. “Even if we were still together, I wouldn’t post them here. There is something cringy and embarrassing about constantly posting your partner these days,” she tells me, adding that, “there is part of me that would also feel guilty for sharing my partner constantly – especially when we know the dating landscape is really shit at the moment. I wouldn’t want to be boastful.”

Sophie Milner, a content creator, also experienced people unfollowing her when she shared a romantic relationship. “This summer, a boy took me to Sicily. I posted about it on my subscribers section, and people replied saying things like ‘please don’t get a boyfriend!’’ She admits that her content perhaps becomes less exciting when she is in a relationship. “Being single gives you this ultimate freedom to say and do what you want. It is absolutely not every woman, but I do notice that we can become more beige and watered-down online when in a relationship – myself included.”

From my conversations, one thing is certain: the script is shifting. Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore; it is no longer considered an achievement and, if anything, it’s become more of a flex to pronounce yourself single. As straight women, we’re confronting something that every other sexuality has had to contend with: a politicisation of our identity. Heterosexuality has long been purposefully indefinable, so it is harder for those within it and outside of it to critique. However, as our traditional roles begin to crumble, maybe we’re being forced to re-evaluate our blind allegiance to heterosexuality.

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Obviously there’s no shame in falling in love. But there’s also no shame in trying and failing to find it – or not trying at all. And as long as we’re openly re-thinking and criticising heteronormativity, “having a boyfriend” will remain a somewhat fragile or even contentious concept within public life. This is also happening alongside a wave of women reclaiming and romanticising their single life. Where being single was once a cautionary tale (you’ll end up a “spinster” with loads of cats), it is now becoming a desirable and coveted status, another nail in the coffin of a centuries-old heterosexual fairytale that never really benefitted women to begin with.

Original article appeared on British VOGUE