I got out of a 7 year relationship last year and I've been rebuilding all aspects of my life. I think I need another half year to reach my former peak of confidence and physique.
But I'm on the right track and finally starting to get some attention from the hotties lately, but those all want to see my instagram... And when they see my profile in the morning after they met me, they all unfollow.
I do tons of fun stuff however I hardly ever get good pictures from these events. I'm not that photogenic either. My last two phones got stolen so I can't even post all the travels I did. On top of that my friends only seem to take/share pictures in which they look better. And there are huge holes in the timeline from the ex-era. Face to face I got much better game then most of em but they are better at social media and seem to even secretly like the fact that I'm so bad at it?
Hate this shit at 38 but it seems more and more necessary. Do I delete it all and start from 0? I don't have a time machine to fix the last 7 years of missing content. I honestly don't know where to start. Ongoing pinned stories of what? Remove tagged shit from friends? Feeling like a boomer here.
Vermillion-Rx Admin 2w ago
1) start backing up your photos.
2) live an interesting life. Going out of your way to get photos for chicks is cringe. Live a good life for yourself (not women) and then take some pics in a natural setting, no performative feel
You can't undo the past, you can only go forward
Also beware this post hinges so hard on being a validation seeking post, which is against the rules of AskTRP. You already know the answer you just wanted to vent that you lost your photos and broke up
The breakup component is why I'm leaving the post up
Cc: @Typo-MAGAshiv
waybackmachine 2w ago
Sorry I was trying to give some context not consciously fishing for validation, I'll re-read and do some more self reflection next time.
Been going social dancing for the last half year, following your recommendation :) But there is not one good picture or video of me dancing for example.
I don't mind going out of my way a bit, it seems instagram is taking over dating apps. Was looking more for some guidelines how to make an interesting profile for single people that doesn't need crazy effort. What is expected, what do I leave out and so on.
Vermillion-Rx Admin 2w ago
I didn't mean to come across harsh or dismissive if I did. I am just trying to encourage you to morph and tailor your question to a broader problem if the situation raised only has one avenue of action:
It's great for lays and building confidence, just don't commit to any women there. Women are more than willing to film for you so just ask them to film or ask their friends to film them. Target the chicks that you know have actual pages cause they already know how to film. Good dance videos are worth their weight in gold especially if the girls are cute/hot
There is a huge difference between taking the time to learn various good angles and technique and going the extra minute it takes to set a up camera properly, compared to spending 10-15 minutes looking for the most performative angle you can achieve with a ton of time and effort per upload
This should have been reflected in your title or post then. Your AskTRP posts are only as good as how you articulate your question
I don't have socials. Perhaps someone else will know @GoingTheDistance
At any rate you should refine your AskTRP questions so they ask what you intended to know
Typo-MAGAshiv Endorsed Contributor 2w ago
I haven't used social media (besides anonymous platforms such as this one) in several years, and I was married by the time social media really took off, so I don't have much to say about that besides to paraphrase what Vermy already said: try to capture the occasional candid moment rather than becoming a performative poser.
I will take this opportunity to address a pet peeve:
"Boomer" isn't a generic term for "old person". It means someone born during the post-WW2 baby boom between 1946 and 1960 (some people extend this to 1962 or even 1964). No one born outside of those years (in either direction) is a boomer by definition.
Words mean things, and when you misuse them, they lose their meaning and just become useless noises. Just look at how meaningless words such as incel, racist, fascist, Nazi, etc have become over the decades.
Besides, misusing words is just really gay.
No-Stress-Cat 2 2w ago
This. Don't be gay. Use your words properly...fags.
mattyanon Admin 2w ago
If they want your instagram, they want to see your social status (number of followers or whatever). Good photos help of course.
At best they want to see your lifestyle.
This is not all women. But it is the "all women" that you're talking to.
My absolute top recommendation: don't do "share my insta". It's phone number or "no thanks".
You can change that. Get people to help, get a spare camera to hand to people, that sort of thing. That's a small investment and a lot of fun to have a communal "event pics" camera that people can hand around without worrying about their phone. Hand it to a different person every week, "get some pics of me for my insta".
How tall? Bodyfat percentage? Hairstyle?
Everyone does this
Use AI to remove her.
Of course they do, noone likes competition.
Ok.
Look, simple answer is this: forget that shit. It's an addiction, has massive competition, and gets very very slim results if you're not top 0.1% on insta.
Your target demographic (presumably women 28-35) aren't completely corrupted, at least not yet.
Apps (Tinder etc) require only 4 photos. Those photos have to be amazing, but you are in control of that.
Insta probably requires years of hard work.
Real life: you do better real life, so find ways that you can capitalise on that. You can swap insta with women so you're clearly talking to them - if they won't share phone number then just say "I don't do insta, I like real life", and try again to take her number.
There's also a good chance that the "insta dodge" they are doing is due to disinterest or not being single. That's fine, but treat it as a soft "no thanks", and not "I must be insta god".
No-Stress-Cat 2 2w ago
Her: "Can I get your insta?"
Me: I don't have social media.
Her: "Why not? It's great!"
Me: Social media is for women and pussies. Now, take off your panties.
Dxmx99 2w ago
I feel ya. I got asked for instagram a few times recently, so I decided to make one. I got mirror selfie with me in a black tank, arms/jaw line showing out in good lighting, and one reel of my trip to an aquarium and another reel of my job (Im a security guard at a wildin' weekend dance club and the video shows the dance floor with a close up of my face.)
Nothing special lmao and I made sure to let it be known on my account that I won't be using Instagram for anything except following people I've met.
Otherwise, I don't have any other social media accounts besides reddit.
I honestly think yesterday is the best time to quit social media.
AI companies have insane amounts of data - per person. Something like 5000 or so data points, I heard.
Fuck that.
charlotteannemoore 2w ago
Yeah. Human answer: I don't think your problem is that you're 38, unphotogenic, or somehow failed at Instagram. I think you've rebuilt a real life after a seven-year relationship, but your Instagram currently doesn't communicate the person you've become.
And unfortunately, if women meet you in person, like you, and then look you up afterward, Instagram becomes a kind of second impression. They're not necessarily judging whether you had an amazing 2024. They're getting a 20-second snapshot and asking themselves, consciously or not:
Right now, your real life and your digital representation are out of sync.
That's fixable.
I would not delete everything and start from zero
Unless your existing profile is genuinely embarrassing, depressing, extremely ex-heavy, or otherwise incompatible with who you are now.
Starting from zero creates another problem: zero social proof and zero history.An empty profile can look worse than an imperfect one.
Instead, think of it as a relaunch.
You don't need to reconstruct seven years. You need to make the next 6–12 months look like the beginning of a new chapter.
And frankly, that's a much better story anyway.
Your Instagram doesn't need to document your life
This is probably the biggest mental shift.
You don't need:
You need: "This is who I am now."
Nobody viewing your profile is auditing your chronology.
If there are holes because you were in a relationship, phones were stolen, friends didn't take pictures, etc., you don't have to explain any of that.
A woman doesn't know there was supposed to be a photo of you in Thailand in 2024.
She just sees what you choose to show her.
I'd rebuild it around 4 things
This is priority #1.
Not necessarily a professional headshot. Not a gym mirror selfie. Not something aggressively posed.
You want a photo that communicates:
"This is what this guy actually looks like when he's having a good time."
At 38, I'd actually lean into looking like a 38-year-old man who's in good shape and has a life rather than trying to construct a 25-year-old Instagram persona.
And here's the important part:
You don't have to be naturally photogenic.
Photogenic people have an enormous advantage on Instagram because they can throw up random garbage and somehow look fantastic.
You need a little more intentionality.
One good photographer/friend + an afternoon doing 3–4 different settings could give you enough material for months.
You said something very revealing:
That's not an Instagram problem.
That's a photo acquisition problem.
Start treating photographs as something you deliberately collect.
Going to dinner with friends?
Ask someone:
Going somewhere cool?
Get 5 minutes of photos.
Doing an activity?
Have someone grab a few candid shots.
Not 50. Five.
And don't make it weird. People take photos constantly.
Your friends aren't necessarily secretly sabotaging you. They may simply have learned to photograph themselves and each other better than you have. But yes, some people absolutely understand social media dynamics better than others.
You need to learn the game without becoming consumed by it.
This is where you have an advantage because you apparently actually do things.
Travel. Activities. Friends. Restaurants. Whatever hobbies you've developed. Interesting places. Events.
You don't need to manufacture an exciting life.
You need to capture evidence of the life you're already living.
And don't make every post:
"LOOK HOW AMAZING MY LIFE IS."
That's exhausting.
A picture of you laughing with friends > a picture of you standing beside an expensive object.
A cool location > a forced "alpha" pose.
A genuinely funny moment > motivational quote.
The objective isn't to impress everyone.
It's to give the woman you met the feeling:
4. Your physique — eventually
You don't need to wait six months.
This is another trap.
You're thinking:
No.
Build it simultaneously.
Your physique can visibly improve over the next six months. That's actually perfect.
You can have:
September: current chapter November: looking sharper January: noticeably different March: holy shit, okay
You don't need to announce the transformation.
Just let the profile gradually become the evidence.
What about the old tagged photos?
I'd be ruthless, but not obsessive.
Go through your tagged section and remove anything that makes you think:
"If someone I'm interested in sees this, I wish they hadn't."
You don't need to erase every imperfect photo.
You especially don't need to remove pictures simply because you don't look amazing.
A profile that contains zero evidence of other people ever photographing you can actually feel strange.
Keep normal, flattering-enough social photos.
Remove:
And don't get into a war with your friends over every photo where they happen to look better.
Curate. Don't obsess.
And your Stories?
Don't create 27 Highlights called:
TRAVEL ✈️ GYM ???? FOOD ???? BOYS ???? LIFE ????
That's where it starts becoming Instagram-as-a-job.
I'd have maybe 3–5 Highlights, and only if you actually have material worth putting there.
Something like:
Travel | Friends | Adventures | Food | Me
Or even fewer.
And here's the trick:
You don't have to fill them immediately.
Let them accumulate naturally over the next few months.
The biggest mistake I'd avoid
Don't suddenly become an Instagram influencer.
You've just gotten out of a seven-year relationship and you're rebuilding your identity.
There's a temptation now to go:
Don't.
Women can smell manufactured "look at my life" energy from orbit.
Your strongest asset from what you've described is actually:
Fantastic.
Then Instagram's job isn't to replace your personality.
It's simply to not undermine it.
That's a much easier problem.
Think of Instagram as the movie trailer, not the movie.
Your real personality is the movie.
And about women unfollowing you...
I wouldn't automatically interpret that as:
"My Instagram is so bad they rejected me."
There are dozens of possibilities.
Some women look you up and decide they're not interested for reasons completely unrelated to your feed.
Some are barely interested in the first place.
Some are checking whether you're partnered.
Some are looking for red flags.
Some simply don't want to connect on Instagram.
But if this is happening repeatedly after otherwise positive interactions, then yes, I'd take the signal seriously.
Not emotionally.
Operationally.
Your Instagram is currently failing to support the attraction you're creating in person.
So fix the funnel.
Here's what I'd actually do
Don't touch the account tonight.
Tomorrow, look at it as if you're a woman you met for 20 minutes today.
You know absolutely nothing about yourself except:
Then look at the first 9–12 things visible.
Ask:
What does this profile tell me about this man's life?
Not:
"Are these pictures objectively good?"
That's the wrong question.
The question is:
"What story does this collection of pictures tell?"
If the story isn't good, rebuild the story.
And there's something else I want to say because you sound pretty frustrated about this.
You're not behind.
You're 38, coming out of a seven-year relationship, and you've spent the last year rebuilding your life. You're apparently getting enough attention from attractive women that this has become a practical problem.
That's actually a pretty fucking good starting position.
You don't need to recreate the lost seven years.
You need to document the next one.
And six months from now, you'll have a substantially better body, more confidence, more experiences, and—if you start now—a completely different Instagram.
That's a very manageable project.
If you'd like to explore further, I can:
Build you a concrete Instagram relaunch plan — exactly what to keep, archive, add, and what your first 9–12 posts should accomplish. Help you design your photo strategy for someone who isn't naturally photogenic, including the types of shots to get from friends without looking posed or douchey. Audit the profile with you if you describe what's currently in your bio, profile photo, posts, Highlights, and tagged section.
brazilianxof 2w ago
Wtf is this CHATGPT shit.
Typo-MAGAshiv Endorsed Contributor 2w ago
That last paragraph does look like something copied and pasted from ChatGPT.
Tag @Vermilion-RX