(Almost) missed connections

How Instagram and Twitter can help us build offline relationships, online.



My current roommate and I became friends through Twitter. 

She and I were both fresh college grads in San Francisco, a new city where we didn’t know many people. We went to a big school and never crossed paths there, but one night in SF, we met briefly at a mutual friend’s party. I mentioned that I had just started a job at Twitter, and we enthusiastically exchanged @handles. 

I periodically saw her updates on Twitter, and I thought she was funny and cool. She also Tweeted some inappropriate stuff that I avoided liking/RT/replying to, since I didn’t want my coworkers seeing that I liked Tweets about doing the hippity-dippity *gasps and clutches pearls*

One day, I slid into her DMs 🙃:



I ended up going to the housewarming that she invited me to. A group of us met for drinks at happy hour about a week later. She and I met again for lunch soon after that, and slowly, we grew to be good friends. 



Frequent and lightweight interactions

Online digital networks like Instagram and Twitter are underutilized ways for people to meet in real life. They serve as a channel to create to real relationships that we otherwise might have missed out on, by lowering the barrier to build sustained relationships. I’ve met several friends and personal / professional acquaintances through Twitter. Many of my friends have met friends online too. Some of these relationships started online exclusively, while others (like my roommate) started offline but were uniquely catalyzed through online platforms. 

In another world without Twitter, my friend (now-roommate) and I would have never spoken again after that party. We would have forgotten about one another and reintroduced ourselves at the next mutual function we attended.  Maybe one of us would have said “I think I remember you from [mutual’s] house that one time." With Twitter, we were able to build momentum by reading and engaging with each other’s content. Frequent lightweight interactions allow friendships to emerge. Online digital platforms give us unique and consistent touch points with people that would otherwise fade from our view. 

Unique entry points

In addition to these sustained and frequent interactions, Instagram and Twitter give us unique entry points to connect with people for the first time. They broaden the spectrum of people that we have access to meet, and give us a way to strengthen the significance of the fleeting almost-exchanges that are too subtle to become something more. 

Imagine…You’re at a wedding and there’s this cute guy. You’ve had a couple drinks, so you forget his name when you exchange introductions in a group conversation. You definitely remember that he's cute. 

The next day, you’re watching a friend’s IG story about the wedding and see that she’s tagged Cute Guy in one of her pictures! You immediately scoot over to his profile and give him a follow, then like ~3 of his pictures. 

Cute Guy follows you back. He likes a few of your pictures too. You slide into his DMs with an innocuous: 😊

  Boom. Flirting commences. 

Most of the people I have met online have been on Twitter, but Instagram is arguably a better platform for meeting people because it’s both higher coverage and more utilized. Higher coverage means more people use Instagram, so it’s more likely that you can connect to someone that you want to. More utilized means that there are more points of interactions (responding to stories, engaging with posts) so it’s easier to build momentum.

Risk and reward

It can be scary and hard to make friends as an adult. We are busy and afraid of rejection, and we lack the organized social structures (classes, clubs, sports teams) that we had in adolescence or in college. This means that we don’t have the same frequent, lightweight interactions as we once did. Instead, we have to go out of our way to create them. 

I should point out that being friendly online doesn’t guarantee reciprocity — my roommate could have easily replied Haha thanks! to my DM, ending our conversation. Cute Guy may never follow you back. There can be no expectation or obligation. That said, the risk and vulnerability is low; all you did was like a few harmless photos or Tweets. While your intentions may be more significant, they are defensibly insignificant. People like pictures all the time to simply show appreciation for the picture and nothing more. In exchange, the upside is high: you create the possibility of a meaningful real relationship.

The next time you meet someone at a party and hit it off, but feel too bashful to ask for their phone number, simply ask them to drop their IG. You’re flattering them—you just want to see pics of their Sunday AM brunch! Nothing has to be implied by a harmless IG handle exchange, but this little nothing could lead to something magical ✨