Videos have gone viral claiming that your partner’s willingness to peel a piece of fruit speaks to the quality of your relationship. Helen Coffey asks whether it’s absolute nonsense or a means to find out if they’re a keeper.
With many things popularised by Tik Tok, The ‘Orange peel theory’ could, at first glance, appear to be a supreme oversimplification of something defined by complex nuances. The idea runs thus: if your partner loves you, they will perform small tasks for you that you are perfectly capable of doing yourself, almost as an act of service. One such task being, for example, peeling an orange for you, because you don’t like doing it.
According to the theory’s proponents, your partner’s response can be taken as a major indicator of the wider relationship signifying whether someone is prepared to do things solely to make you happy, It gained mainstream traction in November 2023, and has recently gone viral again after a woman called Shelby seemingly put the theory to the test, quite literally, and posted the results to social media. In the video,
which sees her sitting in frame with her boyfriend out of view, she says she really wants an orange; he duly tosses one to her. She then tells him, “I really want it, but I hate peeling it. It just gets really messy. I have nails and it’ll get underneath them.” Her partner’s response to this quandary? “Tough luck, buddy!”
As if I don’t do enough,” he adds. “Figure your life out, it’s not all about what your man can do for you. It’s about what you can do for yourself.” She posits the theory: “A good boyfriend would peel this for me or do something that I’m perfectly capable of doing, I can do it myself but the point is that you would do it for me. As an act of service.”
“A great boyfriend would tell you to do it yourself,” he replies. “I’m trying to make you strong and independent and build you up as a female!” This brief foray into female empowerment is quickly countered by his conclusion: “You’re not even that special, that’s the thing. It’s like get that in your Fucking skull, dude. You’re really not that special.”
