You find someone interesting on Instagram (or Tinder/happn/Bumble if they left their IG handle there), though their profile is restricted. You add that person, which accepts you, sometimes after two or three months. You leave a private message to that person, thanking it for accepting you as a follower, and asking if it wants to talk. Then, silence. Or worse yet, exchanges a few phrases and then ghosts you out of nowhere, without explanation or if you didn’t said anything rude.
I mean, no one owes anyone anything in a situation like that, of course, but why bother opening a pathway in the first place, instead of just refusing? And if you find that other not really interesting after some conversation, though not really creepy or weird or over-the-top, why not be polite and say “look, this is not going to work, I don’t want to talk to you anymore” or “this thing you said is a red flag for me, bye, take care”?
What bothers me is like, don’t we talk anymore like normal people are supposed to? Have personal connections become so disposable like that? Or am I just freaking out and perhaps just need to find out somewhere in the real world where I could bond more easily with real people?
Perhaps social media has had an impact, but IMO the larger issue at hand is that people (especially in the US) have both less time and fewer places to have casual conversations. People are working more across the board and have more distractions and things vying for their attention (mostly because of the internet and social media, ofc), so even when a situation appears, there is a higher cost to interact, whether that’s in real life or on the internet.
Fwiw, direct messages can be a swamp of nonsense, especially for people who post a lot publicly on social media platforms. They may not be intentionally ignoring you, but you get lost in the mess. Women especially get harassed via DM on basically every platform so there is a tendency to ignore DM functionality. Platforms that are already set up to facilitate random chats like forums, discord, etc are going to be way better for having a real conversation that could even become a friendship