Dark side to Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson split

OPINION

Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson’s break-up is currently making headlines, but I’m more fascinated by the way Davidson seems to only date in the most toxic way possible.

I know comedian Davidson, 28, is the guy of the moment. He is very tall, boyishly handsome, funny, comes across as nice during interviews. I’m charmed by him, but I’m also alarmed by his dating behaviour. Seriously, he seems to get tattoos in tribute to every woman he dates for longer than a month.

For example, he dated Kardashian, 41, for less than a year and he already has multiple tattoos in tribute to her. At this point it seems less romantic and more a little bit obsessive.
 

It also speaks volumes that this is how Davidson behaves in any relationship. It’s like he copies and pastes his signature – over-the-top – behaviours to whoever he is currently sleeping with.

Davidson reached “it” boy status when he got engaged to pop star Ariana Grande in 2018. He has since been in a string of highly public relationships with well-known women from Kate Beckinsale to Kaia Gerber. And most recently Kim Kardashian.

There’s no denying that his relationship with Grande was full on. He gifted Grande the necklace his late father wore, who died during the September 11 attacks. He got tattoos in her honour, including her last name on his ribcage, and joked on Saturday Night Live that he wanted to switch her birth control pills with Tic Tacs.

I’m sorry, but joking you want to get your girlfriend pregnant without her permission is creepy! No matter how hot and tall you are.
 

Basically, Davidson plays into the trope that true love is about grand gestures and being obsessive, he joked multiple times about how he was always “hard” because of the pop star. At the peak of their public relationship, Davidson’s overt obsession with Grande was considered couple goals, but it was just a loud lesson on how not to behave.

Still, these things happen right? We’ve all behaved a little intensely in at least one relationship, but Davidson has made it a habit.

While his relationship with Kardashian has been more private, he has been snapped with a new tattoo that consists of Kardashian’s children’s names. He also got a tattoo in honour of Kardashian that reads: my girl is a lawyer, in reference to her studying for her bar exam. He got these tattoos after only dating Kardashian for a few months.

I’d call this red-flag behaviour.
 

Davidson’s actions remind me of the toxic men I grew up idolising in romance books and films. Like Edward Cullen from Twilight, Noah from The Notebook, or even The Beast in Beauty And The Beast. A guy watching you sleep? Creepy. A guy building you a house, when you are engaged to another man? Too much. A guy trapping you in his house? Illegal.

These fictional men displayed obsessive behaviour that I used to think was the peak of romance, but now as an adult I find it less cute and more scary.
 

But Davidson is like a real-life version of those fictional men. He does the big gestures and makes the big grand statements and plenty of young women observe his public relationships playout and want that in their own relationships. They want a guy that gets their name tattooed because they mistake these actions for love, but love is much more subtle.

Davidson’s relationship behaviour isn’t cute or couple goals. It’s toxic and unhealthy and it’s probably why none of his relationships last.

Grand gestures and sweet words aren’t the recipe for a healthy and long-lasting relationship. Truthfully, it’s much more mundane things like communication and respecting each other’s boundaries.

However, the most troubling thing about Davidson’s relationship history is that it is romanticising toxic behaviour to a whole new generation of women. Davidson has become this generation’s Edward Cullen, except he isn’t a vampire, he is a real-life celebrity.