Vanessa Van Edwards argues that asking for Instagram or TikTok instead of phone numbers turns dating into a curated performance. You're seeing someone's filtered persona, not who they actually are. She says it's fine to set a boundary: decline the social media request and ask for their number instead.
My single friend told me that she is often, when she's asked out, people ask for her Instagram or her TikTok, not her number. Hot take, no. Hard no. If you ask someone for their social handle or their Instagram, it's basically because you want to look up everything about them before you actually connect with them. And by the way, social media is performative. What you see on someone's feed is a performance. Let's get very clear on this. It's what someone wants you to think about them, the angles, the views. It's performative. It's not really getting to know someone. So if someone asks for your social handle instead, they wanna see all this curated performative content before they decide if they wanna know you. And then it completely changes the beauty of actually conversing with someone to get to know them. Asking, do you have a pet? And hearing, oh yes, I have a dog and his name is this and here's how I got him. Instead of just seeing the picture, oh, she has a dog. I think it is actually setting us up To connect less, it's also making conversation even harder because you kind of know the person, but you don't really know the person. I was really horrified by this, and I maybe this is like oh duh Vanessa, like you're so old you don't know. I know I've been I'm out I've been out of the game for twenty years. Here's what I would invite: You can say yeah I have one; it's just for family and friends. Maybe we can get there one day. Like permission to say no. We can earn to have that social media account. And second, be brave enough to not ask for a social handle. Ask for the number. Ask to get together in person. Ask them out for coffee or dinner because you're gonna know way faster if this is your person. Hot take.
