Screenshot from danamarijuanaa’s post on TikTok
If you’re chronically online, you probably have come across the Vogue article titled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” initially published in late October 2025. At the time of publication, the controversial title sparked viral curiosity. Within a few days, influencers, writers, and internet researchers alike had started to reflect on its broader analysis and implications. But what was truly so novel and exciting about such a statement? As such, the denunciations around heterosexual fallacies aren’t new. Over the past centuries, ruthless efforts to deconstruct the heterosexual myths have been underway. Through public declarations, trials, YouTube testimonies, the critical examination of heterosexual dynamics has entered the cultural mainstream. Scroll through the internet today and immerse yourself in self-taped stories centered on embarrassment and disillusionment surrounding heterosexual partnerships. In that context, does this Vogue article truly signal a revolutionary shift in how relationships are perceived, or does it simply mark the tipping point of a critique that has been circulating and steadily gaining visibility for years, now taking a novel, condensed, and viral form?
In 2019 already, writer Asa Seresin had taken on the task of analysing the rapid growth of a discourse she coined as “heteropessimism,” quoting Maggie Nelson’s words in The Argonauts: “Heterosexuality always embarrasses me.” In this text, Seresin argued that pessimism often becomes a form of performative detachment, a way of appearing to withdraw from the expectations and attachments of heterosexual dynamics. As she writes, “faced with the possibility of disappointment, anesthesia can feel like a balm.” Six years later, when the Vogue article came out, it presents, even in its simple reading, as a new proposition, one that goes beyond detachment. Instead, it points to the idea that through public and viral expressions of critique, heterosexual dynamics, seen as disappointing, extractive, and above all, soul-stretching, could be reassessed. In that light, it is relevant to wonder how embarrassment, beyond its self-punishing nature, becomes the starting point for cultural and social change. If being embarrassed is a performance glitch, a rupture in the social script, can it be stretched a little longer, a little further, and render a possible form of empowerment?
The Stages and Processes of Embarrassment

Screenshot from Grandma Droniak’s reel on Instagram
Embarrassment as Failed Alignment
Across both historical and contemporary contexts, feminine embodiment and lived experience are continually negotiated through regimes of perception. The expected, the obvious, and social contracts delimit what may be expressed or requested. Reading the room, analysing the situation, and eternally assessing one’s role is almost an unconscious state for female-identifying individuals and women at large. The infamous text Throwing like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Mobility, and Spatiality by political philosopher and feminist Iris Marion Young highlights how, even in the most physically intense moments, young girls tend to withhold their full corporeal potential, acting from a learned caution that reflects broader cultural narratives about femininity and perception. So when the girl throws up, when she cries, and when she bleeds, she is always perceived, aware of an external gaze that precedes and frames her every gesture. What is felt when a young woman is asking for a menstrual pad, when she senses her reluctance to disclose debilitating pain during menstruation or during sex, or her hesitancy to ask a partner to assume responsibility for domestic labour, reveals a long-standing economy of gendered silence and performativity. This economy depends on the internalisation of discomfort to preserve the smooth functioning of social relations. In this framework, women’s bodies are shaped by both internal control of emotions and the outward performance of gender roles. Their experiences move between hiding and being highly visible in society, always aware that they could be publicly embarrassed or punished at any moment.
In Philosophical Embarrassment, philosopher Daniel Stoljar begins by defining what embarrassment is and how it always relates to the perception of oneself in a particular state: “In general, to perceive something is to be in a state that plays a distinctive constellation of representational, phenomenal, and functional roles; hence to be embarrassed is to be in a state that plays such roles.” Although this text focuses on the dynamics of embarrassment within philosophical reasoning, it is relevant to understand the dynamics at play in the logic and unfoldings of such an emotion. Following Daniel Stoljar’s argument, it becomes visible that, perhaps, the so-called ‘boyfriend embarrassment’ concerns the scenery and role expectations constructed around a relationship and the roles within those, rather than presenting an attack against the boys themselves. Stoljar, too, attempts to differentiate embarrassment from shame, arguing that “one proposal is that shame is self-directed in a way that embarrassment is not. (…) A different suggestion is that shame is directed at an object, yourself, your country, your religion, while embarrassment is always directed at a situation.” In that framework, embarrassment is understood as a scene, a glitch, and a moment that perhaps can be resolved or moved away from. Shame, on the contrary, lingers; it reconfigures the self’s relation to itself, inducing withdrawal, hiding, and self-minimization. Lighter than shame, embarrassment therefore operates on a social perceptual level, revealing a constructed veil that has been removed.
Quickly, it becomes more and more apparent that the “the boyfriend embarrassment” isn’t always about the boyfriend in itself, but rather about the defined situation one finds oneself in with the boyfriend. This situation, too, speaks volumes to the positionality of the ‘girlfriend’ (if in a heterosexual dynamic) or largely the partner accompanying the boyfriend. Although boyfriend, partner, and husband are different terminologies that stipulate a different level of engagement and commitment, the sake of this argumentation relies on heterosexual dynamics at large, and how they have been, and are currently being deconstructed. No matter the arrangement between two people, the other is embarrassed when they fail to perform the semiotic or performative roles unconsciously assigned to them. This is especially the case when a performative value has been attached to their essence. To be embarrassed is therefore a failed alignment of self-presentation, a semi-fictional social evaluation, a moment of exposure to normativity that leads to deception. But it is also a blip; it passes once the situation re-synchronizes. Although in order for that to happen, the support of all participants is needed to remodel the situation.

Screenshot from Brut India Interview: ‘It is embarrassing to have a boyfriend now?’
The Revolutionary Nature of Embarrassment
Embarrassment has long been studied and analyzed in sociological and performance studies. Erving Goffman, in Embarrassment and Social Organisation, examined both its manifestations and mechanics, noting that “An individual may recognize extreme embarrassment in others and even in himself by the objective signs of emotional disturbance: blushing, fumbling, stuttering, an unusually low- or high-pitched voice, quavering speech or breaking of the voice.” Beyond the physical expressions of this state, Goffman emphasized that such moments were initiated by clear relations to the real or imagined presence of others, reinforcing that embarrassment is inherently connected to a scene, a socially constructed contract. He writes, “Embarrassment has to do with unfulfilled expectations but not of a statistical kind. Given their social identities and the setting, the participants will sense what sort of conduct ought to be maintained as the appropriate thing, however much they may despair of its actually occurring.” In this sense, Goffman indirectly suggests that embarrassment carries a critical force, possibly the artificiality of social order.
Throughout his investigation, Goffman introduces the concept of “role segregation,” later suggesting that the experience of embarrassment can be overcome and resolved through a cooperative effort of “face work,” in which participants work together to realign the situation. This may involve tactics such as ignoring mistakes or helping individuals recover from a situation, allowing social interactions to continue smoothly. In that light, embarrassment carries a distinctly political dimension: it not only exposes the structure of social interactions and expectations but also requires all participants to be aware of what is currently at play to be resolved. Sara Ahmed, in The Cultural Politics of Emotion, similarly argues that emotions are not private, internal states but relational forces that circulate between individuals and groups. Embarrassment, therefore, is not simply “felt” by one woman; it is the effect of a social script that positions her in relation to norms of intimacy, sexuality, and gender. If embarrassment circulates to enforce roles, what happens when the social order is broken, and the embarrassment lingers, or worse, is rendered public? What occurs when partners refuse to engage in the “face work” that Goffman described?
Multiple avenues exist for exploring where this embarrassment originates and who, or what, initiates it. It is evident that years of public deconstruction of the intimate sphere online, whether in health, sexual, or educational spaces, have allowed a statement as simple as “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” to resonate so strongly. Surely, this is due to the growing rise of heteropessimism, but, as we will expand later in this text, it is mostly due to the previous groundwork made by authors such as bell hooks and Simone de Beauvoir in exposing patriarchal structures. As such, it is thanks to a lineage of women who dared to show, in front of the entire world, that the narratives around heterosexual romance were, for the most part, a game that primarily served men. Figures who faced the embarrassment of being in a heterosexual dynamic, and who, instead of trying to conceal it, went above it and rendered it public. Online, these new contemporary figures are not only discussing the unpleasant emotions associated with posting about their relationships and later being cheated on, nor are they only concerned with the potential negative publicity such situations might generate. Instead, they are shedding light on the many assumptions, narratives, and inherited tales surrounding the supposed benefits of romantic heterosexual arrangements. While certain aspects of these dynamics may indeed be positive and rewarding, many others are now being critically examined. Incels (involuntary celibates), for example, often get irritated and label these women as “red-pilled” and accuse them of contributing to men’s misery, leaving enraged online comments, threatening them with a “You’re ugly anyway… and you’ll end up alone!” to which the women reply, “Ending up alone? Don’t threaten me with a good time!”

Redesigned Substack note from Emily Tisshaw
Rendering Embarrassment: Gossip or Testimonies?
The Power of Online Spaces Against Institutions’ Structures
In Cycles, the Sacred and the Doomed, one of the main arguments I developed is that medical misogyny, once considered the norm, has, over the past ten years, been slowly deconstructed through the gathering of communities on social media. This shift occurred thanks to the internet, initially through Reddit channels and Facebook groups, where women came together to publicly and collectively share their experiences and pain. In doing so, they rendered visible parts of a reality that had long gone unacknowledged. Admittedly, it was embarrassing to articulate the many symptoms, effects, and processes of humiliation associated with medical misogyny. Yet it is through the accumulation of such taboo testimonies and shared feelings online that many menstruating bodies were able to realize they were suffering from similar conditions. While it now seems commonplace to scroll through reels, documentaries, and posts about endometriosis, pelvic pain, or various forms of sexual discharge, this was not the case just a few years ago. Thankfully, these topics have now become widely discussed and illustrated on social media, enabling millions of women and menstruating bodies to share their experiences and transforming what was once taboo, embarrassing, or repressed into visible conversations and collective strategies. Although such practices do not replace medical counselling, they have played a great role in shifting the dynamics within consulting rooms and in public spaces.
Similarly to women’s health subjects, the spread of “embarrassing” and “taboo” topics on social media has also helped dismantle other mythologies, such as the idea that loving motherhood is a natural or universal instinct, or that having a husband is the ultimate life hack. The emergence of online testimonies on such matters revealed that, had they truly understood what such a contract entailed, people might have made different choices. Scrolling through online platforms, one now finds a landscape in which marriage and mothering can be experienced as either magical or profoundly challenging; a space where these experiences and desires, positive and negative, are acknowledged and validated. Yet, it would be too simple to say that online spaces have solved many of women’s life issues. If they gave them a platform to express their lived experiences and facilitate discourse emancipation, these spaces have also facilitated erasure and deletion, as well as violence and harassment, making it harder and scarier for some individuals to express themselves freely.
This argument, foundational to the book Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture by Kaitlynn Mendes, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller, demonstrates that digital forms of resistance and challenge can function as powerful tools for condemning rape, sexism, and other forms of oppression, while facilitating others. Researchers indeed emphasize that such online denunciations frequently provoke backlash and harassment, making this form of activism difficult, or, in some cases, impossible to pursue. As they note, “Women being subjected to sexism, abuse, and hostility, then, is not a new phenomenon—the internet and digital technologies have simply provided new avenues for this abuse to be transmitted.” In this context, it is also important to acknowledge that the public articulation of rape carries a far heavier and deeply shame-laden burden than disclosures related to health or companionship. Nevertheless, contributions such as Digital Feminist Activism demonstrate how publicly alleging forms of abuse and oppression can generate new modes of awareness and activism, even if not everyone can, unfortunately, afford to make such gestures.
Returning to the concept of embarrassment in heterosexual dynamics, while no comprehensive studies have yet been conducted, the wave of online discourse deconstructing heterosexual relationships appears remarkably diverse. Although it is difficult to discern the social class or privileges of those contributing to this public denunciation, there appears to be a clear articulation of disillusionment with the false promises of heterosexual fairy tales across multiple spheres. Of course, discourses as they are produced online remain hard to gauge, given that negative experiences with partners and critiques of life paths are widely shared, while the perpetually happy often remain silent and offline. Yet the viral and persistent circulation of such content marks a significant shift. Even in middle-class or bourgeois environments, and within art school contexts, it was clearly taboo in 2015 to admit publicly that being in a relationship with a man could feel draining or disappointing. Discussions of libido, desire, or the absence of desire were similarly difficult to voice. Singleness was regarded as abnormal, and societal pressure to find a partner quickly was pervasive. Times have changed.

Screenshot from YouTube video ‘Marriage Drains Women’, TikTok compilations
The Power of (Auto) Gossip and Its Redefinition
When watching TikTok and Instagram Reels recounting heterosexual disillusionment, there is much to consider in analyzing how embarrassment is recorded and performed. Following Goffman’s argument, these individuals, by refusing to resolve an embarrassing confrontation and instead making it public through social media platforms, confront the roles being played and the scripts assigned to such situations. Such individuals often adopt a confessional, intimate, and story-time-like narrative, one that does not rely on scientific or historical arguments but is instead grounded in personal and social experience. In a certain manner, these narratives resemble gossip, a secret within an intimate relationship that suddenly happens to be revealed to a broader community. If there exists a power in this “gossiping” force, in the reliance on such an informal way of sharing information, there lingers, too, a strange hesitation in using this exact term. Why is that so? When researching  a little more, one can observe that the Cambridge Dictionary itself defines gossip as “conversation or reports about other people’s private lives that might be unkind, disapproving, or untrue.” Could this definition need revisiting, particularly in light of gossip’s socially assistive potential?
In the article Gossip as a Communication System, researcher Sarah Hamerman extensively researched how gossip was, for long, cast as a “historically maligned form of communication, frequently cast as idle, feminized chatter in contrast to the masculine public sphere. But gossip’s bad reputation speaks to its power.” Through historical and literary references, the research invites us to reconsider how, perhaps, gossip can actually be framed as a language for female resistance and an indispensable ‘form of emotional labor’, arguing that “For marginalized people, gossip has a dual function: it works to both affirm communal bonds and unsettle the positions of those in power.” Referring to anthropological studies, the researcher emphasizes a very central point to our argumentation: gossip and rumor emphasize the ways that information is transmitted in social networks: “Writing in 1967, Robert Paine defined gossip as ‘information management’: a mode of informal communication leveraged to advance and protect individual interests.” As argued in the article, while contemporary notions of gossip are often associated with fake news and viral nonsense, it is useful to examine the historicity of the term. This allows us to understand how female allyship has been framed over time as falsified or irrelevant information, particularly in contexts where it challenged figures of authority or the status quo.
In her essay “On the Meaning of ‘Gossip” Silvia Federici, too, took a closer look at the origins of this word and strategy, underscoring the underlying concepts of friendship and allyship that were initially associated with such a term. If, in the early 14th century, no specific judgmental sentiments were attached to this term, it is only a century later that, under a more and more rigid patriarchal system, the word ‘gossip’ started to be associated with dangerous practices exercised by women, which, quite often, challenged the status quo. At that time, what most men wanted was for women to be quiet and obedient wives, and if possible, not to question or share the practices that were undergoing in their respective marriages: “women were […] brought to court and fined for ‘scolding,’ while priests in their sermons thundered against their tongues. Wives especially were expected to be quiet, ‘obey their husbands without question’ and ‘stand in awe of them.” From this lineage, it is relevant to highlight how the concept of gossip is inherited from these falsified, dangerous practices. However, at its core, it was a means to relay information for marginalized groups and to share insights and perspectives on intimate experiences.

Screenshot from TikTok Section Gossip is Taking out Patriarchy
The previous intuition that the term “gossip” could be a misused or inappropriate word is an interesting redirection for our argumentation. As previously argued, one can quickly imagine how its mainstream definition is the result of patriarchal and institutional forces’ censorship of informational systems between minorities, rather than the actual spread of “false information” in itself. If, for quite some time, sharing intimate and personal experiences about relationships was forbidden or avoided, the visibility of ‘gossiping practices’ on the internet has greatly facilitated the normalization of oversharing, especially when it serves to prevent and condemn patriarchal structures and dynamics. But how does gossiping about heterosexual dynamics really connect to the concept of embarrassment? Perhaps, here, the mechanisms of gossip change. On the internet, the process of oversharing personal and sometimes embarrassing experiences starts with the realization that one must first have been deceived and fooled by the script. In that context, the internet, and more specifically, social media, is the exact place where the embarrassment is not being fixed or forgotten, but instead, it is the exact stage where it is being projected and prolonged. The gossip, in that framework, moves from the private sphere to the public and is willingly exposed, instead of simply being leaked. As such, in this online theater of heterosexual dynamics and their pitfalls, rendering embarrassment through public gossiping might become empowerment, if only a few have enough courage to start sharing what happened to them.
Not Even a Gossip: The Long Lineage of Heteropessimism

Screenshot from viral Instagram Interview on Briefbutspectacular with Betty Reid Soskin
Earlier Warnings on Heterosexuals’ Disillusions
The demise of heterosexuality, as we are exposed to it, unfolds across multiple stages: the domestic private one, the public social one, and the exposed media-driven one. Beforehand, the disillusionments of heterosexuality had a few occasions to be publicly denounced, and yet, most of the time, it was gently collected and put back together with the support of patriarchal institutions. Yet, most of us could clearly see and experience its profound dysfunctions. In the book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality Sexuality, writer Jane Ward states on the very first page: “I am worried about straight people. And I am not the only one. Queer people have been concerned about straight culture for decades, not only for our own sake—because we fear homophobic violence or erasure of queer subculture—but also because straight culture’s impact on straight women often elicits our confusion and distress.” As such, the book isn’t a courtroom for heterosexual downfalls, but rather about straight culture and the pretentious smoothness and ease it promises: “Let me quickly assure you that this book is not so much about straight people themselves but about the straight culture in which they are embedded and to which they are held accountable.” Ward emphasizes the long-lasting pain and oppression embedded in heterosexual dynamics, particularly at a time when women had little to no freedom at all. She writes: “Eugenicists such as Havelock Ellis, Marie Stopes, William Robinson, and Harland Long made clear what they understood to be the marital status quo of the time: men and women commonly wished harm on each other, found each other disgusting, and were made utterly miserable by marriage,” reminding us that even a century ago, the conditionings of certain forms of partnerships was despiscable, yet carefully concealed.

Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case, 1700
Ignoring the earlier works that contributed to this growing awareness of heteropessimism would mean overlooking the genealogies of feminist critique, confessional writing, and cultural production that made this shift possible. Throughout history, women in relationships or dynamics marked by deception have attempted in different ways to speak out, often only to be silenced. Beyond the well-known authors mentioned above and others who have since been forgotten, several key events help retrace the lineage of what now appears “brand new” and “viral” in contemporary critical discourse. In Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case published in 1700 by Mary Astell, the writer argued rather clearly how women’s lack of education left them vulnerable to manipulation and dependence within marriage, but also how, marriage, as practised in her time, often resembled a form of servitude, one where wives were subject to the will of their husbands. While this text, written in an older form of English, is rather complex to translate, some parts areand clear: “To be contradicted in everything one does or says, and bore down not by Reason but Authority… denied one’s most innocent desires for no other cause but the Will and Pleasure of an absolute Lord and Master,” a piece of writing that remains highly relevant to revisit in the context of the growing right-wing trad-wife ideology and its emphasis on financial dependence on men. A paradigm which suggests to young women that to be depending on a rich, generous provider, and and being fully devoted to a man is not a form of submission but a return to a supposedly natural order. Yet, as this historical account reveals, such arrangements have long been intertwined with the loss of the self, and of autonomy.

 Twitter Screenshot @cessonmute on X
Any reflection on heterosexuality and its critique would be incomplete without invoking Simone de Beauvoir and her seminal work The Second Sex, a monumental text in which she maps the historical structures that have framed, confined, and legitimized womanhood. Written in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir was audacious for naming and writing a history of womanhood defined by the patriarchal structures of its time: “Now, woman has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality. And even today, women are heavily handicapped, though their situation is beginning to change.” Thankfully, Simone de Beauvoir, who was already a well-known public figure at the time of publication, did not suffer from publisher censorship.
De Beauvoir not only frames the myths and structures built around women, but she also very directly criticises the marital walls in which women are endlessly ‘enslaved’: “Man has succeeded in enslaving woman, but in the same degree, he has deprived her of what made her possession desirable. With a woman integrated in the family and in society, her magic is dissipated rather than transformed; reduced to the condition of a servant, she is no longer that unconquered prey incarnating all the treasures of nature.” By bringing about romantic dynamics with different philosophical concepts, the intellectual argues as to why patriarchal systems of possession and commitment are dooming women to figures of passivity and disappointment. This book, surely a precursor at its time of publication, is to this day a foundational text for understanding how heterosexual marriage operates as both a social ideal and a mechanism of containment, revealing the enduring structures that continue to shape women’s affective lives. While marriage, particularly at that time, remained a particularly rigid and oppressive form of legal partnership, the critical assessment of heterosexual dynamics continues into the twenty-first century. Today, although these two statuses entail different levels of commitment, whether one speaks of a boyfriend or a husband, both remain embedded within the same system: that of expectations surrounding a heterosexual script. As relationships progress, they enter new stages of assumptions, ideals, commitments, and potential disappointments.
Rebuilding with What’s Left: the Feast and the Grief
 

Screenshot from YouTube Video ‘Stop Telling Us about Your Loser Husbands’ by the Financial Diet
Heterosexual Pessimism with Leftovers of Romantic Fantasies
Beyond the algorithmic logic that renders hateful content viral, the cascades of comments, agreements, and reshared stories about boyfriends and husbands suggest that the pre-existing narrative of heterosexual dynamics may be approaching a turning point. Instead of brushing up on the different circumstances and moments of embarrassment or humiliation, these are now turned into occasions for public gossiping and reflections on the tales and myths sold to women in our current societies. And yet, if boyfriends are, to some extent, embarrassing, and if the institution of the happily ever after is now being partially deconstructed, is it really that simple to let go of that wishful romance and of heterosexual thinking? As de Beauvoir wrote, the belief of a happily ever after encounter that could, down the line, permeate a lifelong union, runs deep in our minds: “Un jour mon prince viendra… Some day he’ll come along, the man I love – the words of popular songs fill her with dreams of patience and of hope.” As such, it is not only heterosexual dynamics in their details that need to be scrutinized, but also the long and complex lineage of Western romantic ideologies and imaginaries.
In her book Consuming the Romantic Utopia, sociologist Eva Illouz guides us through the historical lineage of romantic love as it was once produced and imagined: “Romantic time” is constructed to mark out “special things,” and as such it is explicitly opposed to the “ordinary” time of everyday life.” Rendered as special occasions, curated ones that take us outside of the mundanity of things, romance, specifically in heterosexual contexts, has been extracted and turned into an entire economy of capitalistic practices and performances that best serve our liberal societies. Even if we might feel stuck, or perhaps slightly displaced as we think of those practices, their lineage of ‘magical’ and ‘extraordinary’ nature takes us to a place where we will seek such adventures or dynamics, Illouz writes: “Romantic is exotic (Hawaii), fun (the trip, the party), affluent (a plane ticket, dressy clothes), magic (the “spell”), and relaxed. The romantic stands above and outside the stream of everyday life, conceived of as effortful, practical, routine, and unplayful.”
Very few are immune to the charms and the promises of romantic love for its rare and evocative nature. After all, romance is what drives us to do the impossible and to fight for what our hearts desire. Having a boyfriend or a lover is not often embarrassing in the first phases, and for some, the magic transforms or remains. After all, having someone to count on is a very healthy and necessary component of human’s nature, and as Simone de Beauvoir argued, despite her ongoing criticism of marriage as an institution: “Marriage is not only an honourable career and one less tiring than many others: it alone permits a woman to keep her social dignity intact and at the same time to find sexual fulfilment as loved one and mother.” Perhaps our societal confusion was to intertwine concepts of magical and wishful thinking with longer-term and more serious dynamics, a dreamscape that most individuals, no matter the gender or sexual affiliations, can easily sustain.
Post-Embarrassment: Letting Go of the Fantasy and Dynamics to Rebuild
Romantic tropes and ideals sold in Disney movies and mainstream movies are imprinted in our generation’s mind. In the research paper Lessons in Love: Countering Student Belief in Romantic Love Myths, researcher Jeff Standley studied how current romantic love concepts produced through literature, films, or social media currently impact the perception of romance in young adults. He also examined how these concepts directly impact their relationships, highlighting that empirical literature suggests belief in love myths is common among young people and often harms relationships: “There is empirical evidence to support the claim that unwarranted positive beliefs about relationships can have a positive self-fulfilling effect. It makes sense that if someone believed their partner was “the one” and that love could overcome any hurdle, they may be more likely to persist through difficult times to develop a deeper and more fulfilling relationship, thus seemingly proving the myths true (though conversely, one may be willing to remain in a harmful relationship for longer, too).” As such, the researcher argues that the myths associated with romantic love and partnerships need to be reassessed to temper some of the potential harms of love myths while respecting the right of students to freely hold and pursue their own conceptions of love. A change of narration that, as I argued throughout this piece of text, is clearly rendered visible online, and that hopefully, the next generation can shapeshift with different imaginaries.

Screenshot from Vaginal Davis – “The Revolution Is My Boyfriend”
“We should have never hyped boyfriends up so much in the first place,” one can read in the comments of the YouTube video of The Death of Boyfriend Culture. From online strangers to influencers, from researchers to philosophers, everyone seems to emphasize the need to rewrite the expectations that come with relationships, specifically within the context of heterosexual dynamics. This revolution has a strong and empowering nature: one to let various kinds of expectations and formations arrive, instead of simply letting oneself be disappointed by a script that failed to arrive, or simply needs to be updated. For many, it is a breath of fresh air not to feel pressured to date or to be labelled abnormal for not wanting to be around men. Yet it would be dishonest to suggest that some heterosexual women are not also grieving the loss of a life they genuinely wanted, including a union and the desire to build a stable, healthy family. A desire that cannot simply be dismissed as nostalgia, soft power, or social conditioning.
And yet, this post-embarrassment momentum, a clear horizon emerges, including a refusal of poor treatment, higher expectations from partners, and a renewed investment in oneself, one’s pursuits, and platonic relationships. On the bright side of things, if these dynamics are being publicly deconstructed and criticized, it is also to open up the possibility of reimagining them. The questions our generation is left with are not only how to move beyond embarrassment toward a more positive paradigm, but how to reorganise expectations and the self within a world still structured by older narratives and illusions. This shift already seems underway. In both personal conversations and on social media, partnership is increasingly less presented as an ultimate need or ideal. Rather than an illusion to sustain or a stage to keep functioning, it is framed as something to be actively shaped. What emerges from this plurality of perspectives is a more diverse way of living and loving, one that moves beyond the constraints of normative and conservative thinking. By negotiating and reinventing together what heterosexual dynamics can become, we hold the possibility of moving beyond inherited scripts of dependency and domination toward relationships built on reciprocated care and growth, and not predetermined, suffocating roles.
References
Ahmed, Sara. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New edition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g09x4q.
Astell, Mary. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case; Which is Also Consider’d. London: Printed for John Nutt, near Stationers-Hall, 1700.
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1993. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-85715-137-4.
Goffman, Erving. “Embarrassment and Social Organization.” American Journal of Sociology 62, no. 3 (1956): 264–71. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772920.
Hamerman, Sarah. “Gossip as Communication System.” Are.na Editorial, July 11, 2017. https://www.are.na/editorial/sarah-hamerman.
Illouz, Eva. Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. 1st ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Paperback and e-book. ISBN 9780520205710.
Joseph, C. “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” Vogue, October 29, 2025. Accessed January 19, 2026. https://www.vogue.com/article/is-having-a-boyfriend-embarrassing-now.
Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller. Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture. Oxford Studies in Digital Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Online edition, Oxford Academic, February 21, 2019.
Paine, Robert. “What Is Gossip About? An Alternative Hypothesis.” Man, New Series 2, no. 2 (June 1967): 278–85.
Seresin, A. “On Heteropessimism.” The New Inquiry, October 9, 2019. Accessed January 19, 2026. https://thenewinquiry.com/on-heteropessimism/.
Standley, J. “Lessons in Love: Countering Student Belief in Romantic Love Myths.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 56, no. 5 (2022): 739–51. https://academic.oup.com/jope/article/56/5/739-751/7000128.
Stoljar, D. “Philosophical Embarrassment.” Manuscript. Accessed January 19, 2026. https://philarchive.org/rec/STOPEX.
Ward, Jane. The Tragedy of Heterosexuality. New York: New York University Press, 2020. E-book EPUB. ISBN 978-1-4798-9506-9.
Young, Iris Marion. “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality.” Human Studies 3, no. 1 (1980): 137–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02331805.