The “Relationships Should Be 50/50” Meme Is Great Terrible Relationship Advice (30 Tweets)

One would hope that an ideal relationship has a power balance that works for both parties. To my mind, only a 50/50 relationship is a workable power balance, but I realize that’s not true for everyone. That’s why this “a relationship should be 50/50” meme is hitting harder than it should. The tweets about what splits a relationship up fairly are jokes…yet some of these jokes are too real.

The format seems to have been created by Twitter user @yam_url, who tweeted, “A relationship should be 50/50. She’s buying me the PS5 and I’m buying her one Iced Coffee.”

There are a couple of jokes here: one is that men often joke about getting a woman to buy them a PS5 online for reasons I don’t entirely understand. It seems like a twist on the gold digger trope, but for dudes. The other joke is the idea of buying her a single iced coffee and that being a fair trade. Is the joke that iced coffee super expensive? Or that minimal effort on a man’s part is equal to the costly expense of a PS5?

I’m overthinking it, I know.

https://twitter.com/yam_url/status/1306393489102573569

Lots of people started tweeting their own takes on what makes a relationship 50/50 without overthinking it at all, which resulted in many good jokes and many other comparisons that have me questioning what a relationship is really all about. What DOES make a relationship 50/50??

The simplest answer might just be that both people are equally happy.

1.

https://twitter.com/okmvnny/status/1311100829949026304

2.

https://twitter.com/whatamidylan/status/1310077580964368385

3.

4.

5.

6.

https://twitter.com/kellieeastwood/status/1310020525343735808

7.

https://twitter.com/king_toxico/status/1311173355848912898

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

https://twitter.com/imranshah___/status/1311258119217901568

13.

https://twitter.com/travis_orr1/status/1310381626673827841

14.

https://twitter.com/katttparis/status/1311127305184571395

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

https://twitter.com/1800VIRGINITY/status/1311070636555591680

20.

https://twitter.com/dontrefertom/status/1310335620498296837