The Toxic Loop Of Toxic Relationships
Most cosmopolitan millennials and Gen Zs are now too conversant with two key terms when referring to romantic relationships, and romantic commitments — ‘toxicity’ and ‘red flags’. Instagram reels, Facebook posts, and dedicated pages on social media have emerged, especially after the #MeToo movement wherein the youth has taken charge of not just one form of sexual abuse, but also its multifaceted expressions in terms of verbal abuse, narcissistic behavioral abuse, anxious and avoidant relationship patterns, emotional responsibility, and many more.
The mammoth expanse of the content created on ‘toxic relationships’ and ‘red flags’ makes a consumer almost confused, discarding all romantic possibilities lest it is termed ‘toxic’. One drowns in the information overload so much so that one might even enter into a phase of self-loathing wherein you villainize yourself as the ‘toxic’ one. While all these exhort exigencies to improve the quality of relationships and allow each of us to be self-reflexive, I feel there’s a flip side to the story.
Although I cannot deny that a 25-year-old me was a vociferous proponent of recognizing ‘toxic’ traits in relationships and looking out for ‘red flags’ when searching for a partner, my 30-year-old self believes that alongside all the befuddled social-media anxiety, our generation has lost some significant values — the importance of belief, trust, faith, and tolerance — especially in the context of romantic relationship.
During the epoch of the early 1990s to 2010, this emphasis on ‘toxicity’ and ‘red flags’ in relationships made complete sense as the generation preceding believed in an ethos where suffering and unrelenting compromise were preached as relationship goals, especially to women in the context of heterosexual relationships. And that was surely a problem. Women were to suppress their emotional duress and shove away all humiliation with “Men will be men”.
But sometime around the later 2010s, between 2015 till now, I have observed that men, women, transgenders, non-binaries, queer people — all can be equally categorized as ‘toxic’ or ‘red flags’, especially owing to its bleak reasoning. I argue that this has primarily taken place due to the mainstreaming of other kinds of relationships, bracketing all partnerships into heteronormative power relations. Our society is incapable of imagining relationships and partnerships beyond the masculine-feminine boundary, even in queer relationships. Hence, the narrative surrounding ‘toxicity’ and ‘red flags’ becomes more vicious.
In 2014, with the advent of Tinder and the slew of other dating apps like Bumble, OKCupid, Hinge, etc., dating and relationships — both heteronormative and otherwise — took a frivolous turn toward an information overload, and eternal love almost lost its meaning. I feel that our generation is yet to grapple with these ideas, and as hopeless as these times have become, we are desperately in search of hope, belief, justice, and faith.
To an extent, all these were necessary. The pros included recognizing relationships beyond the heteronormative structures, identifying emotional and narcissistic abuse, and most importantly understanding that it’s not okay to treat someone with humiliation in the name of love.
But now, in contemporary times, another delinquency seems to have risen. What about the ones who suffered toxic relationships and gotten rid of them, but the trauma prevails inside them? Isn’t it bound to roll over to the next relationship despite psycho-therapy and mental health assistance? Who shall take responsibility for the ones who were hurt, the ones whose exhortations of love were kicked in the face by a narcissistic abuser? For example, if one has been cheated repeatedly by their lover in an earlier relationship, is it easy for them to trust their partner without anxiety? The question is, can that lack of trust be termed as ‘toxic’? Is it a ‘red flag’?
Initially, as with all youthful ideas, ‘toxicity’ and ‘red flags’ were deterministic and binary — war had been waged against hegemonic masculine practices in relationships. But gradually, I realized that these have now gained a circular motion, a loop, wherein our generation is intolerant of asking why a person behaves in a certain way.
“Oh, she had a breakdown in the middle of the night, without considering I have work tomorrow! She is so toxic!” “Oh, she seeks attention! She is surely a red flag!” We shun relationships like we are throwing away old phones because a key has stopped working. In all this frenzy, we have no consideration for reparations, understanding, and taking responsibility for the ‘toxic waste’ of relationships. Much like we do not own values of repairing and recycling, piling on to the heaps of ravages in the environment; relationships too are bereft of the practices of healing, mutual support, and responsibility towards the tons of ravages that love and friendship have become for our generation. We are too quick to discard people, not stopping to ask what makes them ‘toxic’, not offering them the kindness to turn the ‘red’ of their wounds into flowering greens.
When it began, it had its relevance. But, now we are in a whirlpool of ‘toxic’ relationships and ‘red flags’ wherein the vicious loop between survivors and perpetrators inhabits liminal spaces that can neither be defined nor be ascertained.
In these war-torn, tyrannical, and extremely morally troublesome times (of course, it’s political), nobody can claim perfection. However, if none take mutual responsibility to heal the ‘toxicity’ and the ‘red flags’ that reside within us, and within our significant others, be it friends or partners, then we’ll be left with a world that will no longer hold values of love, hope, and kindness.
Further, all the psychologists in the world cannot fix this if we as a society do not recognize this malicious loop of ‘toxic’ relationships and move beyond its deterministic and binary meanings.
