You find someone interesting on Instagram (or Tinder/happn/Bumble if they left their IG handle there), though their profile is restricted. You add that person, which accepts you, sometimes after two or three months. You leave a private message to that person, thanking it for accepting you as a follower, and asking if it wants to talk. Then, silence. Or worse yet, exchanges a few phrases and then ghosts you out of nowhere, without explanation or if you didn’t said anything rude.

I mean, no one owes anyone anything in a situation like that, of course, but why bother opening a pathway in the first place, instead of just refusing? And if you find that other not really interesting after some conversation, though not really creepy or weird or over-the-top, why not be polite and say “look, this is not going to work, I don’t want to talk to you anymore” or “this thing you said is a red flag for me, bye, take care”?

What bothers me is like, don’t we talk anymore like normal people are supposed to? Have personal connections become so disposable like that? Or am I just freaking out and perhaps just need to find out somewhere in the real world where I could bond more easily with real people?

  • Alice@beehaw.org
    2·
    17 hours ago

    People use social media for different things. I never used Instagram to meet people, personally. I’ve posted art and I’ve uploaded photos just as a way to show long distant friends what I’ve been up to, but those friends and I mostly talked over text so I don’t know if I ever even looked at my DMs.

    I do actually think social media has made me bad at talking to people irl though, but for different reasons. The way I made friends on Tumblr was I’d post a character design and wait for someone else who designs characters to comment, and then we’d talk back and forth about our characters for hours.

    Now I’m trying to remember how to make friends in person and it’s so much more intentional. You have to actually ask questions and broadcast your interest in people instead of assuming they’re going to infodump on you. You can’t take five minutes to think up a reply because there’s no going afk. You have to have interests other than a gay man you made up.