We all romanticize something. For a long time, I wished I had lived a few centuries earlier, when things were simpler, and you didn’t need to fight with your neighbors over a parking spot. But then I read about children working at factories, cholera, ridiculously bad medical care, and suddenly I wasn’t too psyched about it. Who could’ve thought that the past wasn’t as glamorous as the movies made me believe?
Turns out, talking about crooked mirrors is quite popular on Reddit. We at Bored Panda recently discovered three posts (1, 2, 3) with essentially the same question: What does society romanticize way too much? And judging from the abundance of upvotes and comments, we thought it might be a good idea to share some of the replies with you, dear Pandas. From eating disorders to workaholism, continue scrolling to check out the most popular ones and let us know if you agree with them in the comments.
#1
Acts of charity that shouldn’t be necessary.
Like a kid who saves up their lunch money to pay their best friends medical bills or something. Sure, it’s admirable, but our response shouldn’t be ‘awww’ it should be, ‘why the frick is this necessary, why are we letting our governments fail us?’
Image source: lmac_bean
#2
Celebrities. Fake people living fake, manufactured lives, yet the media insists that we care what they think, what they wear, who they’re voting for, who they’re f**king. All because they were born with some genetic gift, or born into the right family, or some other twist of fate thrust them into the limelight. It used to just be Hollywood types. Now we have this whole generation of insta models, reality stars, and other “influencers” whose only contribution to society is their shameless self promoting BS. And people eat it up. Meanwhile we have skyrocketing rates of teen depression and suicide because kids are bombarded with these impossible standards of beauty and popularity in their formative years.
Image source: slainte99
#3
Giant weddings. Why are you putting yourself into crazy debt and through a bunch of stress for a giant event you probably won’t even be able to fully enjoy? Save your money, elope and buy a cool house or go take an awesome vacation.
Image source: OiKay
#4
Mental illness. It’s not a fashion accessory, it’s a disease none of us want to have. You’re not cool, trendy or suddenly super [friggin] interesting because you claim to have a mental illness
Image source: lelakat
#5
Public marriage proposals, where the other party is basically shamed into accepting.
Image source: MisterMarcus
#6
Cancer. I’m not brave, strong or even a hero/inspiration.
I just don’t want to die.
Image source: LadyHale
#7
Controlling/abusive relationships. Twilight and 50 shades I’m looking at you.
Image source: cerose2
#8
War
Image source: ylesren
#9
Workaholism, the grind, hustle culture. It’s not for everybody, and it doesn’t mean someone is a failure to not devote their life to making as much money as possible. What’s the point of making money if you have no time of your own to enjoy it? I work about 55 hours a week, and I feel like I have no time at all to actually enjoy my life. I don’t know how people who are constantly hustling do it.
If it’s for you, cool. I’m not casting aspersions. Maybe that is how you get enjoyment out of life. That’s awesome and in some ways I’m a bit envious. But it should not be some ideal or standard.
Image source: thechristoph
#10
“Gangster” lifestyle. Nobody in the hood wants to be there.
Image source: AfroMan98
#11
Jealousy.
You know what’s hot? Trust.
Image source: ipakookapi
#12
Depression.
There’s nothing romantic about not showering for three days and forgetting what it’s like to be able to feel things.
Image source: JollyWellBox
#13
The mentality of girls “playing hard to get”. No, she’s not into you because you’re being a creep dude, not because she wants you to try harder.
Image source: isthisourthrowaway
#14
Eating disorders. It’s not beautiful and tragic, it’s just a lot of gross s**t. Like hoarding bags of chewed up food under your bed. Taking laxatives until you piss water out of your ass and you’re so dehydrated you have to go to the hospital. Having dentures/implants at 30 because your teeth rotted out. Walking around in public not realizing you have vomit in your hair, which by the way, is falling out by the fistful. I remember reading one horrifying story from an ER nurse who had a patient who was literally vomiting faeces because her stool was so impacted due to constipation from her anorexia. Imagine vomiting your own s**t.
And that’s not including risks like heart failure, life-threatening arrhythmias, brain atrophy, gastric rupture…
There’s nothing pretty about eating disorders.
Image source: tomorrowistomato
#15
Toxic relationships and the bad boy ideology – “bad boys” may seem all cute on paper but no, you cannot fix them. It is up to the person to change and toxic relationships are a battle to make healthy. Only if the two parties are willing to sort it out then it can work out but there’s nothing romantic about toxicity, it hurts and screws with your head
Image source: unknown
#16
Not “needing” 7-8 hours of sleep.
Image source: Andythenardog
#17
Having children.
Being a parent is [friggin] hard work, and kids are basically a**holes for years and years. If you’re not sure you’re up for the challenge, postpone it while you consider it some more.
Some people are savants when it comes to child rearing, but for most people, it’s a skill you have to build, and constantly work on as your kid grows and find new ways to almost kill themselves. And even if you do everything right, life can still throw you curveballs.
Thankfully, I see more and more honesty about the darker sides of pregnancy, childbirth, parenting and economy, and I genuinely believe we are heading towards a generation of enthusiastic parents, who chose the life, rather than just letting it happen to them.
Image source: DisobedientSwitch
#18
Poverty.
Growing up poor and oppressed in a third world country and climbing your way out of this hell, it is not inspirational nor heartwarming. There is nothing beautiful about having to work until you break just so you can provide. No person deserves to live this kind of life. Help, don’t romanticize the poor.
Image source: viciousmotherf**ker
#19
Working while sick.
JUST STOP! It’s not tough of you. You’re not taking one for the team. You’re probably about to take the whole team out.
I get it. Some workplaces have punitive policies for taking sick days (scary sidenote: like every single hospital I’ve ever worked). Some of us can’t afford not to work that shift. But those are policy questions we should be pushing back on as soon as this administration is in the history books and we can finally get back to boring policy making again.
Image source: gramosaurusflex
#20
Stalking o.o Nothing’s sexy about a guy following you around or appearing randomly everywhere you go.
Image source: cerose2
#21
The past.
No, it wasn’t better. No, back in your day kids weren’t better behaved. No, back in your day things weren’t easier.
Image source: unknown
#22
Losing your virginity…
You don’t suddenly change into a whole new person once you’ve had sex. Teenagers should definitely not have this as a benchmark for being grown up.
Image source: ilovezombies33
#23
Unnecessarily aggressive and certain spontaneous behavior, if someone throws a cup of coffee in someone else’s face simply because they don’t like the person, they aren’t cool or badass, they’re an a**hole
Image source: GreyLynxSplash
#24
Pregnancy. It’s scary, life threatening, hard, exhausting, and so many more things. I was so sick. I was sick even after delivering at 32 weeks because if I didn’t she and I would have died from HELLP syndrome. Feeling her kick and wiggle was the only thing I liked about being pregnant. She’s the greatest thing to ever happen to me but it was so hard and the NICU was terrifying in itself. So many people romanticize pregnancy when there isn’t nothing pretty about it. The Maternal Mortality rate in this country is absolutely shameful but that seems to get over looked with most things when it comes to pregnancy.
Image source: sstanger
#25
Gambling; because gambling isn’t about James Bond playing Baccarat in Monte Carlo. It’s about sad, addicted people desperately playing slot machines and losing money they don’t have.
Image source: the_real_grinningdog
#26
Ignorance. You’ve got the right to not care about the world around you, but it’s not something to brag about.
Image source: Stockholm-Syndrom
#27
Portraying a glamorous life on social media. I am so sick and tired of every single person trying to make themselves look like a foodie, fitness model and wanderlust world explorer. Just live your life people. Stop doing things for the ‘gram. It doesn’t care about you or how much of your life you are wasting trying to impress people. Spend more time with your spouse, friends and family and you won’t regret it.
Image source: soulsista12
#28
being proud of “being bad at maths”. also hating learning/education.
Image source: guesswhat8
#29
Chronic illness or life altering disease. People glamorize being sick in books and movies as a lesson in strength, positive outlook, and acceptance. Great values to learn but it completely ignores the constant pain, isolation, and fear that sick people face daily. People pass around feel good stories about “inspiring” people living their lives to the fullest while terminally or forever ill to make healthy and able bodied people feel grateful for what they have. I, nor anyone else in this community that I know, don’t want to be your positive inspiration porn. This life is hard and we wouldn’t choose it so stop using it for stories/media that you get to be emotional over then walk away from.
Image source: xx__calli
#30
For me, personally, it’s codependency. I always had romanticized the idea that me and my partner would fully depend on each other for every emotional and physical need, and that we would and should be able to fulfill the other persons needs. Now that I’m married I realized that if my husband and I did that with each other we would have a gross and dangerous codependent marriage.
Image source: TaraLynnSmith
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