This could be a long one so bear with me if you can.

Instagram, the general opinion is no because it's a platform built for women and high SMV men. While I generally agree with that and is one of the reasons I never had an Instagram profile. However, this has caused me to:

1. Lose touch with basically everyone except 3-4 of my closest friends, this means guys and girls that I used to have at least some kind of contact such as maybe a beer, maybe a plate if it was a girl, and so on.

2. I'm in an LTR and since the pandemic hit a year ago this out-of-touch feeling has grown exponentially and I feel like the world has moved more to a digital world than ever before. I basically don't speak to anyone except my closest friends, since I work from home the only times I see a woman is during sports or gym, and I don't really talk to them since I don't know them. Therefore, the only girl I talk to is my LTR.

3. Lose almost all dread. I imagine my LTR knows I get IOIs in the gym or sports, but that's about it.

PROS:

1. Reconnect with old acquaintances, plates, hell, I could follow new guys / girls that I met during training or whatever activity. Even though 99% of it will be just "likes" exchange, it still gives you validation, hence why people get hooked to it. For all you know it might even lead to some rekindling of old friendships. I imagine many others feel the same way for the last year and a half.

2. Create dread, a new picture of mine with XY likes and hopefully many of them by decently hot girls. Sounds good.

3. It could force me to get out of house more and do shit, for the likes if nothing. But still, you do shit.

Therefore, the idea is to "get back in the game" digitally, which is pretty much the only way now, and will be for a while. Maybe even rekindle an old friendship, whether it's purely hedonistic or even business-wise.

CONS:

• People often talk about how it makes them feel inadequate looking at other people's fancy lives and so on. However, I am well aware it's all bullshit, rendering myself immune? Or not?

• Become hooked to the validation, I imagine that my first picture after I've followed a decent amount of people will get decent attention and plenty of likes, getting hooked to the likes sounds shit, once again, I am very well aware of this phenomena, however, can it be avoided at all is the question.

• My LTR has a profile but as far as I know she doesn't post much if at all, maybe a story now and then and lurks only. This will definitely make her wonder why, and she might start posting as well, where I expect her to get more attention because she's a girl, d'uh. Right now I have a LTR which isn't active on Instagram which is super rare, what if it backfires and she becomes active and what not happens.