Oh, the Discover Feed.
This is where Instagrammers come to explore posts from similar accounts to theirs. These posts are filtered based on your screened interests, like music and other pop culture, and for me, an obscene amount of makeup tutorial videos. This feed also includes posts from accounts who's users are either close to you geographically, or with whom you have mutual followers. In other words, people you may want to follow.
And these days, the Discover Feed on Instagram, and other forms of social media (Twitter, Facebook, et cetera) seems to have turned into a dating pool. It shows pretty faces and potential connections, romantic or otherwise. Pretty much soft-core Tinder.
Obviously, this isn’t the exclusive or even intentioned purpose of social media. Getting to share posts and pictures of yourself and your life with the people you know and love, or even strangers who are interested in what you’re up to, is a pretty cool thing. It’s a great way to share ideas, support causes, honor what you value, and so on.
But if social media was purely used for those purposes, we wouldn’t read so much into a receiving a private message, or even a follow back. Cupid is obviously up to something.
If you have a public account, anybody can see your posts, whether it’s in the Discover Feed, via retweets and shares, and so on. Anybody can follow you, and try to connect with you by sliding into the DMs (DMs are direct messages, mom). I’m not saying that this use of social media to connect and meet isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it makes connecting more convenient, and if you have romantic intentions, this can surely be helpful.
But there are a few serious flaws with this social media dating scene.
First off, it is shallow. You can judge whether or not you want to pursue a romantic interest based on the pictures that they post, of themselves, or otherwise. I can’t count the times I’ve seen my male friends rip apart a beautiful girl’s appearance and disregard her potential as a partner just because of a few bad pictures on Instagram, tweets, et cetera. Honestly, it makes me insecure about my own posts (I now have a private Instagram account as well as my public account, which only my closest friends have been invited to follow). A few good photos and clever captions aren’t enough to judge somebody’s real dating potential. You can’t see their soul through a screen.
The second problem with the online dating scene is that there are so many other options. With so many accounts, there are so many potential DMs to slide into. It’s nice to have options, but when you don’t zero in on one, and try to pursue an actual connection (which isn’t always convenient), it’s easy to move on to the next “better” thing.
Social media also takes the courage out of pursuing somebody in person, as well as the excitement of it. It it way easier to slide into the DMs to “talk” instead of intentionally ask somebody on a date. I get it—it is terrifying to put yourself out there, because getting shut down sucks. Even worse, asking somebody to coffee and having the conversation go absolutely nowhere makes you want to beat your head against a brick wall.
But you have to go through that a time or two. And that’s okay, because with every awkward dating encounter is a lesson. Keep moving forward.
When my kids ask me, “How did you meet daddy?” I don’t want to tell them, “Well, dear, he slid into my DMs.” Honestly, I think social media has its place, but definitely not in my dating life. I hope that our generation starts to see a culture change in terms of dating, because I think our relationships and the dating process will benefit because of it.
