Instagram can be hollow and confusing for daters

Alison Taylor's colleague disabled Instagram when a guy she'd been seeing went very quiet about meeting up, but would "like" every one of her posts

In Instagram, Facebook has a genuine contender for the award of Social Media Platform Most Likely To Cause Emotional Anxiety for daters. "I've disabled Instagram" came the iMessage from my colleague. "I was driving myself insane."

You can see why I make the Facebook comparison – the number of times friends are all, "I've deleted my Facebook" in the dark ages (the Noughties), only to be back on there a week or so later, the likelihood of relapse being almost unavoidable. The problem my colleague was having was this: a guy she'd been seeing had gone very quiet about meeting up, but would "like" every one of her instagram posts.

"Liking stuff on people's social media is like knocking on their door and running away," she said to me, sensibly. "You're either in it or you're not, matey."

It does seem like the coward's way. It's like the person hitting the heart button is taunting you with a quick "I'm still here! Don't forget me!" But when it comes to actual conversation, the same people are incapable. It's hollow and confusing.

Another side-effect of this knock-a-door-run behaviour is that the person receiving the likes is conditioned by the liking behaviour. Even though they know the hit they get from it is short-lived, it's fuelling that electronic need. I know my friend was putting certain pictures up in the hope her "admirer" would hit "like". Cue anxiety if no response came.

A further dark behaviour trait to emerge on Instagram was highlighted by another pal: "I could tell he was cheating," she said. How? Her boyfriend got so like-happy with somebody else's feed (how ridiculous does that sound?) that she knew his (shallow) heart lay elsewhere.

Bring back speed-dating, I say. And I say that as someone who's never done it and hates everything about it. But still, it has to be better than this, surely?

@lovefoolforever