The Date with Confidence Podcast - The Reason I Stopped Looking At Their Social Media

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

EPISODE 57: The Reason I Stopped Looking At Their Social MediaI was swiping away on Hinge the other day when I was reminded of the thing that gives me the ick instantly....Get Involved!You can contribute your stories to the Date with Confidence Podcast here. Share your best or worst dating stories, your biggest icks, dating tips you think everyone should know or ask me anything about my dating life or a burning question you need an answer for.  ResourcesThe Dating DebriefAttract on the AppsLoved UpThe Breakup Bounce BackThe Confidence KitThe Confidence CourseSubscribe to our YouTube channel.Follow your host Rebecca Hawkes on Instagram and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you know what gives me the instant ick? Men's social media profiles. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that'll either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that'll provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date alongside light-hearted catch-ups where your host rebecca that's me by the way shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life you are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating struggles empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come and if it all falls

to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups. You are welcome, my friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. So years ago, when I worked in my office job, there was a guy that worked a couple of floors above me and he was so hot. Really hot guy. And my friend that I worked with, she knew someone that knew him. And I was like, oh my God, I wonder if he's single. And I was going to be like, can you put in a good word for me but then we stalked him on Facebook because that's what you did back then I mean I don't do this anymore for this specific reason but that's what we used to do back then was stalk them online so we find his Facebook page go to his Facebook page

and or profile and instantly I was like oh my god no this guy's not for me he gave me the ick before I'd even got to know him and this reminded me or I was reminded of this story because the other day I was on hinge having a little scroll through all the people that have matched with me and this guy had he like he had a profile. I'm matching with a lot of younger guys at the moment, which I'm here for. Having dated older now, I'm like, no, let me go back to younger. He was younger than me.

He was like 28. Profile was quite good. But then he had his Instagram in his profile. Now my rule of thumb is anyone that puts their Instagram handle in their profile is an instant no for me because I'm like why like why is this necessary I would never put my social media in my dating profile because to me it screams I don't actually care about being in a relationship I just want to grow my following and the prompt that he'd put was something like or the thing that he'd put was something like, or the thing that he'd written with his profile was something along the lines of like, even if we don't match, then hopefully you can check me out on Instagram or we can be friends on Instagram or something along those lines.

And me being curious, I was like, fuck it, I'm going to go and check out this guy's Instagram. So I go to his profile and I get the ick immediately, so aside from like the topless kind of half-posery photos, he was also following like a ton of girls, because I checked out, he was following like 600 and something people, which I just don't think is necessary, but anyway, he was following like 680 people, and I was like looking to see who he was following them and a lot of them were like young hot girls and I was just like okay this is this is not for me I've never dated someone who uses social media that much so I don't know whether it's just I don't know I'm just not used to dating men that have Instagram and I just I don't really care to know about other people's social media like anyone that I've dated over the last couple of years even the guy that we've seen

at the start of the year I didn't know his Instagram handle I had no interest in knowing his Instagram handle I was just not bothered at all because seeing what men post on social media gives me the ick immediately so so anyways, I'd seen his Instagram profile, and I was like, this guy's probably not for me, and then there was a link to his YouTube in the profile, so I was like, oh, do you know what, I'll check it out, I'll just see what he's like, and he's quite successful on YouTube, like, decent following, decent views, like, pretty, pretty successful, so I was like, okay, I'll just watch one of his videos, so hit play on one of his videos, that I'm like, this might be interesting, and immediate confirmation, didn't

like his voice, didn't like his accent, didn't like his mannerisms, he was chewing gum, it was like an instant no from me, and like, I'm quite, I've come to realize how important voice is for me it is a huge thing for me accents that typically bother me Essex and East London which I know is major like so hypocritical of me because I've obviously got or I'm from Essex I don't feel like I have a really strong Essex accent, I don't think, because of, like, living abroad and trying to lose it, um, but yeah, like, a strong Essex accent, East London, is not my ideal, like, you know what I mean, like, a proper, like, East End kind of accent is not, not my, not my cup of tea at all the way that Essex boys speak and I'm like this is generalizing massively this is mainly going on my exes and the way they talk about like

nicking a bird and like it makes like when when men refer to women as birds it makes me feel sick i'm just like shut the fuck up you're disgusting um so yeah i heard the way this guy talked and decided like you are definitely a no and i think sometimes it can be good because now obviously i haven't wasted my time matching with someone who i know is an instant no but I think the problem with this the problem with checking out people's social media before you get to know them and a big reason why I specifically don't is because you then build up a perception of someone that isn't the same as meeting them in real life and I get like people are authentic on social media people show up as themselves great but I also feel like people show a certain personality on social media so I was listening to a podcast the other day it was a Jamie Lang podcast and I can't remember who he was interviewing now I've only seen a few of his interviews it might have been Youngblood um I've only seen a few of his interviews it might have been young blood um I've only seen a

few of his things is this the good company or something something like that anyways Jamie Lang's podcast and he shared on there how he believes we have like four personalities within us like four key personalities and I would I'm just trying to find because I made a note of this when I actually watched it so I'm just trying to find that so he had said or he had heard someone else say that we have four personalities so the one that we are the personality we are with our family the personality we are with a friend with our friends personality we are with our partner and the personality we are with our friends, the personality we are with our partner and the personality we have when we're just ourselves on our own.

And I agree with this, but I would also add in that there is a fifth personality and that is the personality that we show on social media that is more of ourselves than we are when we're with our family. And it's a hint of who we are with our friends and more of who we are when we're alone than family and it's a hint of who we are with our friends and more of who we are when we're alone than we share with the people we love but also it's still a lot of the

time holding back from the exact person we are when we're on our own and we're we just have that permission to just be ourselves and that's why I think it's a problem when we look at other people's social media before we get to know them because we do build up this perception of who they are based on the the personality they put out on social media and I think that can be quite damaging because I think we can get rid of not get rid of but we can instantly dismiss someone based on a couple of photos or a couple of videos that they've shared online, when that's not everything that they are. And I think we can miss out on really good people because of that. And at the same time, we can also save ourselves some hassle by knowing that it's going to be an

instant no. So I don't know what the purpose of this episode was but I found it really interesting when I'd checked out the guy's profile and I was like yeah instant ick not for me no I also think one of the challenges that I'm gonna have in the future is obviously I've now been growing my business on social media for well since 2016 I put a lot of me on social media and I've never been with someone like I started that business when I was with my ex so and a lot of the time I felt not embarrassed but I was like oh my god what if I put this out on social media and he's gonna judge me kind of thing and now I'm gonna be dating someone who is then going to see my social media at some stage so I think my challenge is gonna be not letting what he thinks of me and my social media impact my ability to run my business and also I would like to date someone who is also on social media for the same reasons that I am in terms of like growing a business or growing

a community or growing a following whatever the reasons are I think I'd like someone who understands my need to be on social media a lot and the reasons for why I share what I do online I'd actually really love to meet someone who we can like set up a podcast together like I'd love to have a couple's podcast just putting it out there men if you are listening and you want to date me no I'm joking um but I would love to yeah I'd love to have like a couple's podcast at some stage because I just think it'd be so much fun to do something like that anyway I'm waffling um I would actually love to hear from you does guys social media give you the instant ick and are you someone that goes and looks up someone's social media when you start dating them?

You can send me a message on Instagram at yourconfident30s or you can go to the contribute form datewithconfidencepodcast.com slash contribute to share any of your thoughts from the episode, share your own stories. To respond to the two questions that I just asked. Or to ask me your question for the next community episode. So go for that there. But this has been a short and sweet episode. With me talking about something that I thought might interest you. If it hasn't then at least you've only wasted ten minutes of your life. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you in the next one.

Thanks so much for listening to the Date With in the next one thanks so much for listening to the date with confidence podcast I hope you've enjoyed this episode subscribe rate and review and share it with your single friends Thank you.