Why are we so upset when celebrities like Zoe Kravitz and Channing Tatum break up?

When Harry Styles and Taylor Russell broke up earlier this year, I remember feeling strangely disappointed. But I thought they were really made for each other! I remember thinking, despite the fact that I had never met any of these people and generally knew nothing significant about their private lives. However, I felt empty, as if they were my favorite couple to spend time with. And then when Channing Tatum and Zoe Kravitz the engagement was called off earlier this month I felt the same feelings. Although – and I’ll be honest – I didn’t really think about them much differently. And don’t even get me started Stormzy and Maya Jama– This made me want to vomit.

Celebrity breakups have been going on for a long time coup tabloids and internet gossip. “Shock split!” read the headlines while a “source” says something about conflicting schedules or how they are “at different stages of life” (according to Zoe and Channing, reportedly). We don’t just want to know who broke up, we want to know Why And exactly How they have reached this point. Did someone cheat? Was it sudden or did the process build up slowly and painfully? Have any of them already left, and if so, with whom? If the couple was especially loved, see: Molly-Mae and Tommy Fury in England, JLo and Ben Affleck are everywhere— we could look through previous months for clues.

It’s strange how interested we are in celebrity breakups. These are complete strangers, some of whom live thousands of miles away, and we are mourning relationships we were fundamentally unaware of. But as with any parasocial dynamic, I think our preoccupation with celebrity breakups probably has a lot less to do with them and a lot more to do with us, especially if you’re in a relationship yourself or might be related in some way j. You start thinking about whether your own engagement might end within a few awards seasons, or if you too might celebrate your anniversary one day, and then you write on Instagram something like, “Never in a million years did I think that I’ll have to write that someday” next time. Does everyone end up cheating? You start thinking. Or, do me and my three month old situation “I want different things”?

I really think this hobby, this emotional investment, doesn’t start and end with celebrities. I feel the same way about people I know only vaguely—friends of friends, or people I’ve followed on Instagram for years and don’t remember why. When I recently discovered that a couple I separately follow online (neither I’ve ever physically met or spoken to) had broken up (they both unfollowed each other and deleted all their couple photos), I felt feeling strangely upset. Even a little sad. Why would they do this to me? I was thinking nonsensically as I looked through one of their stories documenting a holiday in Lanzarote after a breakup. When someone’s life seems fragile or subject to change, you begin to fear for your own. “I don’t want to go on holiday to Lanzarote after the breakup,” I began to think, although it wasn’t even on the agenda.