‘Indoda Must’ Culture, Are We Redefining Love or Creating Unrealistic Expectations?

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Loving someone has become so complicated lately because of the standards society keeps on setting. You’ll find yourself questioning if your partner even loves you because of the things "he's not doing right” according to societal standards. Now the bigger question being are we redefining love or creating unrealistic expectations? Who exactly gets to define what is love? And are we supposed to not oppose that meaning and follow it blindly? What love means for me might be something different for the next person and because of that, we can never truly box the meaning into one defined term. But we can also agree on one thing, love is no longer the same as it was a few decades ago and so the way people love will always evolve.

Love in the olden days was simple but profound in some ways and did not require much maintenance to prove its longevity. Couples did not often communicate daily in order to keep the spark alive, it was only on words and promises that one would wait for the return of their loved one. However, now there's a huge contrast in this generation of new age technology. Couples are expected to communicate daily in order to keep the connection alive, otherwise after a while if communication is not consistent then the love will slowly fade away. I always wonder if the world was to disconnect from technology for a month straight how many people will still be waiting for their partners? The way we communicate in relationships isn't unrealistic but adapting to the time we live in.

But would you like to know what unrealistic communication is? To expect your partner to dedicate 24/7 of their time to you and coddling your insecurity of that if he/she is not talking to you then it means they are entertaining someone else, yes, sometimes they are but that is not always the truth. Some people have strict work regulations where cellphones are not allowed and some can only use it during break time so it'll never be consistent. What helps in these situations is letting your partner know beforehand that you will be occupied so there are no expectations for communication at that time. See? Love is evolving in a sophisticated manner instead of having unrealistic demands that become toxic over time.

Individuality is another important aspect of love that people tend to walk past until in the later stages of the relationship or lets say after the relationship has ended. In the olden days couples did not spend all their time together unless they were married. People were able to separate their time and spend time with friends doing fun activities or just lazying around. However, now, love is being measured by how much time couples spend together.

Because “how dare you not spend time with the person you claim to love?” ‘indoda must’ make time for his woman otherwise she is not being loved properly. Being consumed by the other person does not cross their minds because this is how things were meant to be. But this is not how things were meant to be, but what society has deemed to be the perfect love ideology. This is why you find that people have no identity outside the relationship and struggle to make connections because of listening to strangers online who are actively dictating what an ideal relationship should look like not considering that everyone has different love languages.

In another instance, love has been measured by how much one person can give in a relationship. The term ‘Indoda must’ has been popularised on social media by women saying if a man likes you then he must provide. This is not a foreign concept, in fact it was invented by patriarchy that a man will provide for his loved ones, so now that times have changed the standards or ways of doing things has changed.

The cost of living and invention of currency has made things different, if your grandfather had a herd of cows back in the day those cows amounted to his wealth and now wealth is hidden in bank accounts and not seen in real life. And back then just like today wealth made things go around. So it's safe to say we as women are still following the teachings of the bible than a man will provide and the woman will multiply what has been given to her. It's unfortunate that some will feel the pressure because of the grand gestures performed by those who can afford ignoring the little things you're doing because they are not so grand.

We are not redefining love nor creating unrealistic expectations but times are changing and so everything else will evolve. What people do not realise though is that everyone has a different love language, how my friend receives love is not the same way I will receive it which is what is causing conflicts.