this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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Yes: recognize what you’re trying to accomplish and change your actions.
Privacy requires shutting people out of your life. Meeting new people requires letting people into your life.
If people expect that the first “gate” into your life is your social media then meet that expectation. Have a social media presence. Post shit that you want people to see on it.
If you’re afraid of letting the companies that operate social media see your life, examine why. It may be that you’re perfectly fine with the trade off of a limited hang out in exchange for looking normal. Most people are.
It doesn’t have to be instagram. You could have a snapchat or a tiktok or whatever.
I disagree. You are normal if you have social media and not if you don't?
Dunno man, if people need IG to interact with you and you are not comfortable with it, maybe they are not your people, you know?
Why should one go into uncomfortable territory for others, people should interact from positions of comfort, otherwise its a stretch for one side and just a bad time all round.
One thing is for sure @[email protected] , you will have a harder time, make less connections, but I'm pretty sure the ones you will make, will be solid.
One word of advice as a fellow non-socialmedia-person. If you want to meet new people, make sure you are in the same place at a certain time on certain days. That way people know where you might be during certain hours and that is also a way to make connections. Just be sure you like said place.
Social media is literally normal.
It has gone through a process called normalization in order to become an expected part of social interaction. The op even said that people expect them to have a particular type of account and they feel like not having one excludes them from having more friends.
Yes, you are normal if you have a social media account and abnormal if you don’t.
I agree with you. Social media has been normalized and you are not fit in society if you don't have any at all.
The ol’ sarcasm detectors’ flashing red, ringing the bell and pouring black smoke out of all the panel joints but yes: if you want to fit into society it’s important to have social media.
If you wanted to live a private life in the 1970s, would it be better to descend from your cabin hundreds of miles from civilization with a wild mane of shaggy hair wearing your homemade leather suit or with an unstylish but kempt haircut, nondescript jeans and shirt and military duffel bag looking like any other of the myriad characters wandering the roads at the time?
Obviously you’d want the latter. Part of privacy is blending in so that you don’t arouse interest.
Nowadays if you want to be a private person and still interact in society, like the op, you need to have all the trappings of a someone who doesn't raise alarm bells. That includes, especially as your age drops, social media.