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Have you been handed an orange lately? Proceed with caution. It's hardly a coincidence if it's given to you from someone you're romantically involved with.
Ask any single person and they'll confirm that the dating scene, as it now stands, is wildly out of control. But even coupled folks are finding they are not safe either thanks to TikTok's viral "Orange Peel Theory." In short, if you think your relationship is solid, you might want to think again. Want to test it? Grab your boo and an orange and ask them to peel it for you.
What is the Orange Peel Theory?
As the name suggests, you need unpeeled orange to try out the experiment for yourself. From there, all you need to do is simply hand the orange to your partner/spouse/anyone you hope will one day be your partner or spouse.
Then, take note: Do they peel it for you, no questions asked? Or do they look at you with raised eyebrows or simply ignore it? The very small, insignificant-seeming task of peeling an orange for your love (without being asked) is, to many, proof that a partner truly loves and appreciates them.
And, as I've found, it's been around longer than you thought.
The origins of the Orange Peel Theory
It's not often that my English degree (where I mostly focused on poetry) really gets some mileage, but it certainly did once the Orange Peel Theory hit the zeitgeist. You see, peeling oranges for your beloved (friends or lovers) is well-chronicled in the poems of Wendy Cope and Jean Little. And "Golden Girl", a song from Frank Ocean's album Channel Orange, starts off with the lines, "She peels an orange for us in the morning / She woke me up to give me half."
In all of these instances, the peeling of an orange is loving in how ordinary it is, how commonplace the act is. To peel an orange for someone, unprompted, is to actively show you want to care for them and share, especially if the person handing the orange to you is perfectly capable of peeling the orange themselves.
It's big "Acts of Service" love language energy, of course. But is it really an ideal we all should strive for?
The problems with the Orange Peel Theory
As I'm sure you've noticed, these constant relationship "tests" (especially the ones done on TikTok that often earn viral amounts of views, like Tania Totones Martinez's "Ask Your Man" prompts), invite others chime in on and compare what should be private relationships.
It's also, at some points, an invasion of that same trusted privacy. To sex and relationship psychologist Charisse Cooke, the main issue of the Orange Peel Theory is that these tests are just simply unfair at their core. That being said, Cooke also points out that the theory can help couples identify issues that might be tricky to talk about otherwise, especially if there's a tendency to minimize problems with our partner.
"By doing a test, it can draw attention to attitudes or behaviors in a relationship that are not healthy or loving," Cooke says. In other words, if they won't peel an orange for you, what other small tasks will they refuse to do or lack awareness of?
On the flip side, TikTok is positively filled with videos of Those (often Cringe) Couples. You know the one, where they must proclaim their Perfect Relationship from the Social Media Rooftops. Maybe it's their braggable "Golden Retriever Boyfriend" or some other internet trope, but it only compounds the chokehold things like the "Orange Peel Theory" have on us.
Of course, like a lot of TikTok dating advice, the Orange Peel Theory misses on some nuance (like what else is going on in your relationship, personality types, and love language styles). A peeled orange alone cannot entirely determine a successful or healthy relationship in the long run—oranges aren't Magic 8 Balls, after all.
But it's hard to shake the quiet sweetness of being doted on to the point that you don't have to even peel your own oranges (the ultimate dream). I know I'd personally love a reality in which I'd never have to peel an orange myself again.
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