An Unholy Relationship

If only there were a book that guaranteed eternal life, or a mystical force guiding you toward your better purpose. If only there were people to tell you that you’re extraordinary, that you sit above the rest while the world admires you. But this “royalty” romanticizes — kings, queens, peasants. Who decided on any of them? 

Status today is as arbitrary as it’s ever been. Based on popularity. A relationship title. The mask you wore on the day you met someone who held something you wanted. We talk about royalty like it’s ancient history, but modern versions are alive and thriving — fictional monarchs ruling fictional lives, while real people struggle to see how they fit into the story. 

People with “higher status” always seem to need a hobby to fill the emptiness: stealing identities, copying artwork, repackaging ideas as their own. They feed off attention like gluttons at a marketplace. And no matter how terrible the behavior is, if they get what they want in the moment, they believe they’ve won. 

Tell me — what’s the difference between the old idea of a slave and the modern person who gets publicly belittled yet privately mined for their achievements, thoughts, and worldview? What is the modern-day equivalent of this dynamic? 

Because in our era, relationship status can make someone’s head swollen. People chase “better” endlessly, scrolling through infinite options, while the person they tore apart watches them recreate a fictional moment repeatedly. Boys, especially, get trapped in that cycle — the need to always be in a relationship, the bitterness toward past lovers, the showboating of “look how much better she is than you.” 

And the saddest part? A woman unaware of the harm being committed will inadvertently enable it. She becomes part of the performance, not realizing she’s reinforcing a pattern that hurts not only her, but the person he’s targeting his resentment. The behavior might be discreet — but most of the time it’s not. It’s loud. It’s clear. And if you hate someone enough to keep referencing them online, just tag them. Stop creating mental fog for someone who’s already fighting their own battles. 

Before the internet bathed our brains in noise, we had stories like Romeo and Juliet — star-crossed lovers whose tragedy ended in silence. Imagine if they had Instagram: would Juliet be scrolling for clues of infidelity? Would she gather screenshots of every questionable interaction? 

It’s naïve to think these digital habits don’t breed distrust, or that gut feeling in your stomach that something is wrong. Because today, love doesn’t just exist between two people — it exists in public, under the gaze of an audience trained to reward illusions. And the pressure to perform, compete, and compare slowly poisons what should have been simple. 

And maybe that’s the real tragedy of modern love — not that people are unfaithful, but that they’re performing. Performing affection. Performing loyalty. Performing happiness. A relationship becomes less about two souls teaching each other and more about two profiles maintaining a narrative. We’ve replaced honesty with aesthetics, privacy with publicity, and genuine connections with curated chemistry.
When everything is visible, nothing feels sacred. 
When everything is shared, nothing feels safe. 

Deep down, we still crave the same things humans always have belonging, admiration, safety, connection. But we chase these things through screens that warp them, stretch them, turn them into versions that look real but feel hollow. 

And it’s easy — dangerously easy — to confuse attention with affection, validation with value, visibility with importance. We convince ourselves we’re kings and queens when really we’re just actors wearing borrowed crowns, performing in front of an invisible audience that claps only as long as we keep dancing. 

In the end, no one wins. Not the one posting to prove a point.