#Instafriends

Now that I've been making an effort to actively grow my Instagram followers, I've had a lot of correspondence with men in India. For some reason, men in India feel the need to send a message that reads something like this: "Hi. My name is [insert name here] and I work for the CIA. I'm from Salt Lake City, but right now I'm stationed in India. My job is top secret, but I think you'll eventually learn what I do. Please tell me: Are you married?"

Needless to say, when I see that I have a message from someone I don't know, I am often times wary, but there are three instances that have proven to be quite rewarding.

The first involves Shane, who sent me a turtle emoji in response to a reel I'd posted about Trampled By Turtles. "Love that band!" I sent back, to which he replied, "Same. I saw them last night!" (He actually got to see Trampled with a guest opener: Taylor Meier from Caamp 😍.)

From there, Shane (@thatguywandering) and I communicated about music. He lives in Oklahoma and told me about a connection he has to a venue in Tulsa. Because of this connection, he's gotten to see a lot of amazing musicians and occasionally meet them. I asked him to name the nicest artist he's ever met and his answer was Garth Brooks. Hear that, Erin? (My dear friend Erin is a sucker for Garth Brooks; if she's reading this right now, she's waaaaaay jealous.)

What I learned from my exchange with Shane is that not all men on Instagram are creepy. Some of them just have really good taste in music and want to talk about bands they've seen in concert. And I love that!

My second great interaction occurred with Vicky (@thestudypsycho). I stumbled upon her page and noticed that in her bio, she wrote "👩‍❤️‍👨In a RELATIONSHIP = 🚫 DM me I’m not interested go away." Naturally, I wrote to her because I wanted to let her know how much I appreciated this comment and that it had made me laugh. "Whyyyyyy are there so many men in India and Turkey looking for relationships?!" I wondered.

She wrote back and said, "I know they’re just ridiculous !! Then they come out with ‘stop playing hard to get’ im like YOU STOP PLAYING HARD TO GET RID OF!!!!" ...which of course made me laugh harder. I liked that exchange a lot!

My third exchange with a stranger involved this picture or one very similar:

My marketing manager Mary had posted it in her story, along with the first four words she saw. I then did the same, including the first four words I noticed: MAN, MIRACLE, STRENGTH, and RELATIONSHIP. I also included that it would be a miracle if I found a man and ended up in a relationship since that so rarely happens for me. 🤪

Abby (@abby_authentically) then sent me a private message to let me know which four words popped out to her, and after that we had a fun back-and-forth regarding her hope that I'd find a man in 2023 and it would happen early on in the year. Ha! Another fun exchange!

That's all for tonight. I'm off to write my book and make potato soup.