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Indian Express

Is binge-watching romance shows killing our love life?

In a world where a Mercury retrograde can be blamed for relationship failures and hopeless romantics yearn for genuine connection, OTT shows filled with dramatic love often serve as emotional comfort. The 'hot priest' from Fleabag once said: 'Why believe in something awful when you can believe in something wonderful?' And the binge-watchers have caught on — building lovecastles far from reality and setting unrealistic expectations in their real relationships. Recent romantic dramas, such as When Life Gives You Tangerines, Nobody Wants This, Too Much, and The Summer I Turned Pretty, all offer an emotional rollercoaster ride to their viewers. They serve heartbreak, lust, and the relief of reconciliations on loop, in algorithm-approved, snackable portions. The storylines may span years, but we watch them in mere hours. Who needs couples therapy when you can watch two fictional people break up and reunite every 47 minutes? While the content may be hitting all the right emotional chords, the side effects of romantic binge-watching might be more existentially fraught. According to a 2023 Nielsen report, the average streaming viewer watches two to six episodes of a show in one sitting, often completing entire seasons in less than a week. Romantic dramas capitalise on this trend by keeping their viewers glued to the screen with storylines brimming with emotions, and quick escalations to happy moments. One minute, characters are strangers; three episodes later, they are soulmates or as the Internet would call it, karmic connections. Problems arise, but they are resolved by the finale. There is always a closure, a conclusion, an end. Viewers are left with a satisfying emotional arc and a skewed sense of how real relationships work. 'Modern-day romantic shows may be igniting unrealistic expectations in real relationships in the sense that if you hold yourself or your partner to the standards seen in the program, you are likely to be disappointed,' says Georgina Vass, a London-based relationship and sex therapist. 'Rarely in these shows are mundane day-to-day situations or complicated challenges shown,' she adds. For example, a 29-year-old photographer observes that most onscreen relationships overlook discussions of economic compatibility. 'In the fast-paced world, people look for economic stability. However, many romantic shows seldom talk about pay disparity and how couples who live together divide expenses. So, when real-life couples also don't talk about finances, it leads to multiple complexities,' he says. According to a 2024 study from the University of Edinburgh, binge-watchers who consume romantic content are more likely to report dissatisfaction with their relationships, especially if they score high on measures of emotional idealism (the tendency to view past emotions only from a positive lens, often resulting in a distorted sense of reality). When we binge-watch shows, we often fail to recognise the labour of love — the years of patience, the long talks that end in fights, the unresolved arguments, the small gestures that build a foundation. These are the things that rarely make for meaty content but are essential to lasting intimacy. Real intimacy involves ambiguity, misunderstandings, and stagnation. But binge-driven content culture breeds dissatisfaction with these slow moments. As a result, many of us are quick to judge our relationships as 'not working' simply because they fail to mimic the arcs of our favourite fictional couples. The hard truth, however, is that finding an understanding shared by Monica and Chandler or Yan Gwan-sik and Oh Ae-sun is like living in a cloud-cuckoo land. A 36-year-old software engineer has felt this in real life. 'Monica from F.R.I.E.N.D.S., who is shown to be very assertive, can come across as a little annoying at first. But maybe that is what some men want. However, most of them would be unable to express that they hope their Monicas would be as understanding as Courtney Cox's character. I have had relationships with women, and from every relationship, I would expect the woman to complete my sentences and organise my life like Monica did for Chandler,' he says. 'Real relationships grow when both people respect each other, work hard, and are patient. These are qualities that are often missing from the idealised portrayals of love on screen,' says Dr Rahul Chandhok, Senior Consultant & Head Psychiatry, Artemis Lite NFC, New Delhi. 'These shows don't often talk about how important it is for couples to talk to each other, make compromises, or deal with the problems they face every day. Because of this, people might expect their partners to be perfect or their lives to be full of excitement, which can be disappointing when things don't go as planned,' he says. Take, for instance, Netflix's Too Much, which won plaudits for its hyper-realistic portrayal of modern love, dealing with trauma-bonding, stalking, and more. But its storyline thrives on poetic monologues, dramatic reconciliations, and eventually a marriage. It's engaging precisely because it's not constrained by reality. With such shows served on autoplay, a feature designed to serve similar stories one after the other, our appetite for raw, awkward, and painfully real human connection is quietly fading. 'In order to avoid disappointment, a couple can discuss their real-life desires with their partner. Based on these discussions, the individual can manage their expectations of what their partner can provide,' says Vass. 'Also it's helpful to be realistic, perhaps you didn't receive fireworks on your birthday, but maybe you consistently wake up to a coffee on your bedside table or can rely on your partner to fix the TV when it breaks and that's pretty special too.' In a time when emotional stories are just a click away, we should ask ourselves whether our relationships are being shaped more by what we watch than what we live? Falling in love on screen is easy, but staying in love in real life still takes something no algorithm can give, which is patience. Shruti Kaushal is a social media sieve and catches'em trends before they grow big, especially cinema. She has been a journalist for 4 years and covers trends, art and culture, and entertainment. ... Read More