Dearest Readers, 

Who doesn’t love a nice, cute little universal theory that sums up the world in a neat bow? Academia, the internet, and that guy who won’t stop talking in your seminar certainly do. But how do these theories hold up against a messy reality?

It seems every week a new catchy, viral phrase surfaces, aiming to make sense of or ‘hack’ the way we look at relationships. These online theories make big claims to simplify the complex world of friendships, family and romance in a couple of words, captivating scrolling viewers and opening new conversations online and offline. 

To mediate and explore these intriguing viral theories, we, your esteemed agony aunts, are starting a new conversation thread, sprinkling a healthy dose of our delicious SSE salt on these trendy online slogans. 

How can we learn from them?

 What do they tell us about the dating scene today? 

Do they have any credibility at all?

Bringing out the nuggets of wisdom they wield and interrogating their limitations, we will look at some of the trendiest, most pressing online relationship theories of the modern world. 

Theory I : The ‘Cup and Jug’ Theory

Are you a cup? Or a jug?

That’s the soul-searching question at the heart of this theory on emotional compatibility in relationships. 

Using a water volume analogy, the theory divides the population into two camps:

 ‘Jugs’: those with a high emotional capacity, who pour endless amounts of water (affection, crazy dates, I love yous, PDA)  into a relationship. 

And ‘Cups’: those with a smaller emotional capacity who give less of themselves to relationships and tend to ‘fill up’ quickly.

Naturally, when a jug and a cup date, their emotional ‘volumes’ do not align and a strong sip of ice-cold heartbreak brews.   

As the jug gives out its water, pouring enthusiastically into the cup, the cup quickly overflows, drowning in a hands-on, intensive relationship.

When the cup pours water back into the jug, it offers a modest trickle that barely wets the bottom. The jug is left empty, unfulfilled and probably starts chatting to a therapist about emotional neglect.  

In short: one person is ‘drowning’, the other is parched. 

It's a dramatic analogy, yet works to visualize a very complex, hard-to- swallow truth about emotional mismatch in relationships. 

With all theories, a considerable amount of generalisation is made. Dividing the population into cups and jugs obviously discriminates against mugs, wine glasses, fish tanks and that one shriveled up plastic water bottle you haven’t got round to chucking yet. Humans, after all, aren’t static vessels but emotional shape shifters. Depending on life situations, who we date and whether we skipped breakfast or not, we can change from a swimming pool to a thimble in a single day.

In terms of accountability, claiming cup-status against a jug is not going to hold up in court. It reads more as an easy way out of proper communication, respect and openness rather than a valid excuse. Unlike a cup, we can ask the jug to go easy on the water; we can pop back to the potters and remould our volume; or just treat the jug to a nice tap.  

Visually, however, the theory strikes home. It gives form to such an abstract concept as ‘incompatibility’ or the age-old ‘right person wrong time’ dilemma. Many people in these misaligned partnerships undergo a self-inflicted blindness, unable to accept the truth that their relationship style, love languages and general terms of commitment are incompatible. No matter how hard you try, if your love language is water and you are a jug, a cup will waste a lot more of your ‘water’ than just a few tears. 

The theory, for some, is a powerful splash of cold water to the face, prompting them to let go of relationships that leave them unfulfilled or overwhelmed.

Though water is largely an inadequate allusion to emotion and love, those struggling with emotionally unavailable or overly consuming relationships may resonate with this theory. 

So if that is you, move on. Go find the cup to your cup, the jug to your jug, the inflatable paddling pool to your inflatable paddling pool. Stop wasting your water and pour it where a real splash can be made. 

Yours ever and always, 

Marina and Salina XXX