Being a happy couple is wonderful, but displaying it loudly on Facebook might turn people off. To keep your friend list in tact, you might want to avoid PDA.
Everyone who’s been in a happy relationship knows the pressure of avoiding public displays of affection. When we’re in love, we want to express that, and we usually don’t care who’s watching; but for the sake of all of the other people that constitute a public situation, we try to keep our lovie-dovie stuff behind the walls of our homes or at least to a minimum when others are watching.
Sure, when we have that perfect someone, there is a tendency to want to show off, not only him or her but also that special connection that is so difficult to attain. Some might even say that two people in a strong relationship deserve to display their affection and that they shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks.
Maybe out in the world that holds true. If you want to kiss and complement your one and only in front of strangers in the streets, then odds are that you’ll never see them again anyway. But that dynamic changes when you change the public scenario from a world full of non-acquaintances to the “friendly” world of social media.
A recent study has been detailed in a paper published by Personal Relationships. Researchers created fake profiles and found that couples who fail to avoid PDA on Facebook are viewed as sharing too much about themselves and become highly disliked for that reason. The study also shows that most people perceive these couples as happy but are turned off by their swooning over each other.
The research suggests that people can tell that your relationship is healthy just by viewing your profile, and that PDA is unnecessary to communicate your happiness.
To read more about the study, click here.
[image: via SEO on flickr]
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