I unfollowed all my coupled-up friends and feel better than ever

This Sunday, 7 January, is known as 'Dating Sunday'. Millions will scroll through their Tinder accounts on the app's busiest day, possibly getting RSI as they swipe left and right.

And it's more than likely that they'll also be looking through social media, coming across the thing most singles dread - posts from loved up couples.

That was me, until October last year, when I unfriended 44 people on social media: family members, a slew of smug celebs, a group of very close friends, and a multitude I probably should have cut loose already. The only thing they all had in common? They were happily coupled up and even happier posting about it.

Up until January 2017, I’d been one of them. I was one half of a couple of 10 years and all of my followers knew it. But then we broke up. And, just when I could do without it, my social feeds started to resemble an episode of Say Yes to the Dress (where brides try to find 'the dress' for 'the big day'). It hurt. I still feel raw whenever I see an Insta of an adorable couple walking their equally adorable dog.

That’s why I decided to remove them all from my feeds in a ruthless mass cull.

We all know that social media can leave us feeling anxious, sad, envious, bitter, lonely, useless, hopeless, external...just lacking somehow. According to the University of Pittsburgh,, external spending too much time on social media can, external“elicit feelings of envy and the distorted belief that others lead happier and more successful lives”. Not ideal for someone adjusting to single life.

Plus, anyone with an Insta account can attest to what the Harvard Business Review calls ‘ruthless comparisonism’, external: trying to live up to the unattainable achievements that others broadcast on social media.

“It’s a natural thing to compare yourself to others,” says relationship psychologist Madeleine Mason. She points out that seeing loved-up couples when you’re feeling low about your own relationship status is only going to make you feel worse. “It can make you feel hopeless and even pushes some people to burnout," she says.

When you’re bombarded with those ‘me & bae on the beach’ pictures, it’s all too easy to start thinking you’re not living the ‘right’ life. That everyone around you is happy and fulfilled, while you’re an emotionally stunted wreck who eats cheddar in bed and cries over The Supervet.

The first day of no longer seeing these photos in my feeds was strange. The effect was almost instantaneous; it's striking how easily our social media reality can be manipulated.

I actually missed the happy faces. It was a kind of emotional masochism - it can feel painfully good to be remember how blissful relationships are when you’re not in one. But I know that’s not healthy, and after just two days, I started to really enjoy it.

It was awkward when some of my friends noticed I'd unfriended them. They were initially hurt, but when I explained my experiment, they were suddenly struck with guilt. "It never occurred to me that my posts could make people feel bad," said one. Even when I assured them they were doing nothing wrong, I still ended up sounding like some relationship Scrooge who just couldn't be happy for others.

But without these friends in there, the shape of my feeds changes and my other interests take centre stage. I end up seeing a lot more about politics (and, weirdly, desk ornaments).

Obviously, I saw more posts from my single friends, such as one who had just published a book. She was having a reading which I otherwise might have missed - instead I hit 'attending' and realised I haven't seen her since she finished her novel. I also focused on more announcements from my single friends – one posted about her promotion, while another, a personal trainer, announced she was started teaching a class at a new gym. I realised I might have missed them in the previous deluge of coupled-up photos.

Not seeing my loved-up friends’ selfies meant I didn't actually have the chance to fall into the old ‘happy couple > my horrendous break-up > now I’m single > eat cheese in bed’ thought process. I’m didn't spend anywhere near as much time dwelling on romance. It felt freeing. And I started to realise just how one-sided all those couple posts are.

As with everything on social, they show a filtered version of real life – a snapshot in time, taken at just the right angle - not the everyday frustrations of sharing life with someone else. Those moments when your significant other makes a crass joke which you hate, or the days of seething silence following a petty argument are never, ever shown on Instagram.

The newly diverse feed also threw up more opportunities than I ever thought it would. I took up an invitation to a cool gallery opening from a friend and told her about my experiment. “I can’t believe you’ve only just done this,” she said. “I unfollowed all the smug couples months ago.”

I did miss a few big announcements (like another engagement), and I missed the feeling of being intimately plugged into my friends’ lives. So when the week was over I re-followed my closest pals - even the smug marrieds. But when they reappeared in my feed, I realised that I was no longer so affected by their couple posts.

The break from seeing it so relentlessly, especially from people I’m not particularly close to, was freeing. There was suddenly a little more space in my mind which allowed me to be genuinely happy for the ones I did see. I found myself feeling far more excited than I would have been before when I find out that my best friend has secured her dream house with her dreamy boyfriend.

There are some people who I’ll never re-follow - from friends on the periphery of my social life to the more saccharine celebs. It might sound harsh, but I don’t get enough out of them to merit putting myself through their #LovedUp posts. I know that I can’t unfollow everyone in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean I have to subject myself to constant couples’ selfies from people who, if I’m honest, I don’t even like that much.

Ultimately, though, it’s just like Mason says: “Our social media obsessions might well push us to compare ourselves to others.” But we can pretty quickly beat the Insta-blues by “re-focusing our brains on our own lives, and the things – and friends - we’re most grateful for.” Amen to that.

First published on 26 October 2017