why do we love the bare minimum so much?

right so i have a friend and she talks to like a new man each week and no one can keep up with it but, there are two reasons that she sooner rather than later moves on. a) they give her the 'ick' b) they turn out to be 24. But when she tells me about them its like, you know, typical teenage girl crush talk. Even though it is so awfully repetitive each week but its's still fun init. And so as i listen to her giggle away she starts saying how sweet and how much she likes it when they do/say gm/gn texts, doesn't talk to other girls(?????), calls her pretty and all that type of stuff and that's where i got the inspiration for this post.

So bare minimum means the least possible amount. For the dating world it means when a person puts in the least amount of effort, well not quite least but technically yes, and things that really SHOULD be taken for granted and come with the responsibility of having a romantic partner. These things should include: not talking to other people in a flirting way, making plans/dates(girlies can and should be making plans 2!!), having manners, helping out with chores, etc. etc. In some cases the 'bare minimum' can be a wee bit extreme like some things i don't understand are when girls don't want their bfs being literally good people to other girls?? Like when i was on TikTok, side note- get your arse off that app 'brainrot' humor is gonna cause a lot of casualty and who's gonna write these insightful blogs when I'm in jail?, there was a lot of posts that humored their boyfs for unfollowing all girls on Insta. I even saw a post where the boyf unfollowed EVERYONE on their insta except for his lady. And naturally everyone is the comments was like 'yessssssss girl' 'marry him' 'he a keeper' and all that jazz. And i recognize that that is NOT the bare minimum and defo should not be!!!! And that to do that is very extreme and if they break up it would be extremely humbling to add all you pals back... ALSO i would like to say always pick you friends over your bae no matter what like helloooooo. If your boyf/girlf is not letting you hang out with the bros girlie they do not want the best 4 you!! Anyways bros>hoes. Swiftly continuing on, so now we know what the bare minimum is, why do we praise the most basic ass partners for doing it (EVEN THOUGH SHE HAS NOT DATED ANY OF THESE MEN HELLO?)

Now, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone OR anything in particular but i think as a whole relationships have become social medias biggest content maker. From them clickbait YouTube videos 'Caught cheating boyfriend! (*NOT CLICKBAIT**)' to content creators like Thewizardliz (and others I can not remember!) that make toxic independent woman manipulative 'if he's not paying for everything and brings the income and is good looking i don't want him', even though that itself is okay if you want to stay at home wife or whatever ,it's the way they talk about it that makes it toxic and almost reinforces toxic masculinity and very very traditional and quite frankly outdated ideology. Like that a man can only treat you well with money and tbh it's giving aranged marriage. And then of course there are those videos (that i used to absolutely LIVE OFF because I was in a hopeless pit of  'I'm gonna die alone') that are meant to tell you why you're not getting a boyf, why you're not attractive to the male eye, how to get a guys attention. And if we stripped all that it's saying you're ugly and you're not high value and its was all just STUPID ASS MIND GAMES THAT DON'T WORK. I can remember watching one and it was like, how to stay in a guys mind: type on snap, then stop and don't say anything. THEY WILL THINK ABOUT YOU ALL DAY!! And maybe, some of that advice was okay. But REALLY the basic principle of the 'good' 'advice' was be nice and the issue is, if you do that advice, sometimes a boy simply does not like you. You can send a cute snap in a tank top with your mascara done AND YOU STILL WON'T WIN HIM OVER BECAUSE YOU AREN'T MAGICAL AND NOT EVERYONE IS IN LOVE WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially, if he is gay. Been there, done that. And now dating is a complex code and you can't simply be seeing, oh no no no. There's a talking stage, and a situationship, and now everyone gets the 'ick', 3 month rule, orange peel theory, ketchup theory, AND IT NEVER ENDS. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST LOVE EACHOTHER???

We consume so much content about other people and their business now(family channels are a prime example) that we want everything that others has and then what we think as society is that everyone has everything and we have nothing, not even half. So I think that we want to grasp onto anything that shows they like us in anyway. Bringing us back to the many gay men i have crushed on, why? idk boredom. Unless my friend doesn't even like any of these men but that would chuck my whole scripture in the bin so thank you so much for reading my organised ramble and i think i want to make a post on ick because i like writing about things to maybe someone might listen and agree or disagree with me. #

edit: why do i get progressively more mad ahaha