The high-effort boyfriend is the internet’s newest romantic ideal—planning elaborate surprises, documenting devotion through reels, turning everyday affection into something cinematic. He appears as the antidote to bare-minimum love, proof that romance is alive and thriving. But what begins as a corrective is fast becoming another kind of pressure, where love is judged not by mutual care but by how convincingly it can be displayed.
At the heart of the trend is a subtle shift: relationships are no longer just lived, they are staged. Affection becomes evidence. Dates double as content. Gifts are expected to be grand, aesthetic, and instantly legible to an audience. Love moves from the private space between two people into the public arena, where validation comes in likes, shares, and approval from strangers.
Indian psychologists are increasingly uneasy with this transformation. Delhi clinical psychiatrist Dr Shefali Batra notes that constant spectacle distorts emotional priorities. “When partners expect love to be proven through grand gestures,” she says, “they stop articulating their real needs—emotional safety, listening, consistency. Over time, disappointment becomes inevitable.” The relationship looks full, but feels hollow
There is also the issue of imbalance. The high-effort script often positions one partner as the perpetual giver—planning, anticipating, managing emotions—while the other becomes a receiver of care. Bengaluru therapist Dr Rachna Khanna Singh describes this as romantic inflation. “When gestures keep getting bigger, emotional satisfaction actually shrinks,” she explains. “Effort becomes transactional, and resentment sets in quietly.”
Social media accelerates this toxicity by rewarding extremes. Viral relationship clips train audiences to judge intimacy through fragments—a pause, a glance, a lukewarm reaction. This trend collides with a culture already negotiating rapid change. Younger couples are caught between inherited ideals of sacrifice and new expectations of spectacle. Chennai psychologist Dr Soundarya Rajesh observes, “We are confusing devotion with display. Healthy relationships are repetitive and often unglamorous. Social media rewards the opposite—constant novelty.” The deeper problem with the high-effort boyfriend narrative is not effort itself, but conditional effort. Love becomes something that must be continually proven, escalated, and validated. If the surprise shrinks, commitment is questioned. If the performance falters, affection is doubted. What gets lost is reciprocity—the understanding that emotional labour, care, and responsibility must move both ways.
Thoughtfulness and romance are not the villains here. Performance is. Effort that demands applause is not love—it is pressure. The high-effort boyfriend may be trending, but relationships do not survive on spectacle. They survive on shared effort, quiet presence, and the freedom to be imperfect together.