7 Comments
User's avatar
mary wallace's avatar

With all of my romantic interests, I’ve always stalked their Instagrams before speaking to them or going on a date. It felt better to “get to know them” by myself and then make a decision on them, rather than doing it more organically. Sometimes there’s positives to this (safety being the main one) but ultimately I think it’s a negative, because all we have to go off of in this scenario is our perception of them. On the flip side, when I am talking to a romantic interest and we exchange Instagram profiles, I always get excited to imagine them stalking me and wonder how they perceive me, especially because sometimes I feel like I do a better job of presenting myself online than I do in real life.

Expand full comment
Summer Noel's avatar

Thanks so much for your thoughtful response Mary!💗

Agreed! I usually like to check out a person's Instagram before actually meeting up with them because it gives me an idea of who they are and, honestly, it just makes me feel safer.

But I know exactly what you mean! I do the exact same thing with imagining them stalking my Instagram, hoping they think I'm as cool as I think they are. I always have to remind myself that I don't actually know them lol. But, obviously, we want the people we're interested in to think we're cool, interesting, whatever, it's just natural! But it also makes it easy to create a version of them in our minds and then expect them to be that way. I've done this to people and had it done to me, and I feel like it can be damaging either way.

There's definitely goods and bad to it all, but I think there just needs to be more awareness with how we interact with people online. I mean this has been an issue even before social media, but I think it's made it easier to confuse liking the idea of someone vs. liking them for who they actually are.

Expand full comment
Morgan O'Neal (she/her)'s avatar

I loved this!

Expand full comment
Summer Noel's avatar

Thank you so much for reading Morgan! So happy you liked it😊🥰

Expand full comment
Rebecca Woolf's avatar

🙏❤️

Expand full comment
Summer Noel's avatar

omg! I'm tearing up in Target right now. Thank you so much for reading! This means the world to me🥹🫶🏻💗

Expand full comment
Rebecca Woolf's avatar

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Expand full comment