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"  This year I found myself single for the first significant amount of time in my adult life. It&amp;#039;s actually been an empowering experience, one I&amp;#039;m glad to be enjoying in the confidence of my late twenties rather than at 23-years old. Despite my occasional frustration with the market, I&amp;#039;ve thus far consciously avoided the world of online dating. Not that it hasn&amp;#039;t worked for friends or isn&amp;#039;t intriguing, I just prefer to meet people the old-fashioned way (er, at a bar) rather than by browsing some contrived profile. But wait: Not only do I browse contrived profiles on a daily basis, but I also actively engage in curating my own. Like so many others, Instagram has become my main social media outlet\u2014life&amp;#039;s most attractive, clever, silly moments cropped and filtered. And whether intentional or not, it&amp;#039;s a landmine for engaging with the opposite sex. A few weeks ago, I spent an evening flirting with a super-cute bartender in Brooklyn. After many generous Gruner refills, we added each other on Instagram. When I got home later that night\u2014his number written on a cocktail napkin in my purse\u2014I checked my Instagram to find that Mr. Bartender had Deep Liked me. As in, he had taken the time to scroll back through at least most of my 850 photos and &amp;quot;liked&amp;quot; a handful of my finest work\u2014or more accurately, my finest selfies. So I did what any interested girl would do and scrolled through his feed, too. While I only offered one Deep Like in return, I enjoyed the window into my new prospect. By the time we went on our first date a few days later, I already knew he enjoyed sailing, camping, and motorcycles. I&amp;#039;m sure I could assess the same from his OK Cupid profile. Deep Liking is, in fact, a common practice and among many new rituals that come with dating in a digital age. In this case it wasn&amp;#039;t creepy; it was flattering. I&amp;#039;ve also been Deep Liked in less charming circumstance though, like when a stranger likes pictures of me in a bikini from 15 weeks prior. Or, when my ex-boyfriend goes back and likes images from when we were together, and suddenly in the middle of a random Tuesday, he&amp;#039;s made me think about him and that lovely time we had in Italy. Bastard. Instagram is the perfect platform for the casual nature of dating these days, especially in a place like New York. It has a wide pool; it&amp;#039;s superficial, and it allows users maximum control of their engagement. You can be as voyeuristic and nosy as you want without consequence, and you can offer people a sliver of validation simply by tapping on a photo, no follow up necessary. Receiving Instagram likes can bring a on a fleeting smile or an eye-roll, but either way you don&amp;#039;t dwell on it very long. Robert Weiss, author of Closer Together, Further Apart: The Effect of Technology and the Internet on Sex, Intimacy and Relationships and media expert to CNN and The New York Times, notes that Instagram can, at times, be likened to a no-strings-attached sexual encounter. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s definitely a low-risk format for interpersonal interaction,&amp;quot; he explained. &amp;quot;Offering up a &amp;#039;like&amp;#039; is pretty noncommittal at both ends. There may be hope for response, but there is no expectation. And both sides of the equation perform these tasks on their own turf and time frame.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s so true: The control technology allows people means less obligation, which is probably why texting has replaced calling in the dating world. Flirting over Instagram is also unique because it&amp;#039;s an entirely public forum with no private messaging. One friend told me she became irrationally jealous to learn that the guy she was seeing had Deep Liked several pictures of another cute girl after stumbling upon his activity on the &amp;quot;Following&amp;quot; feature Instagram offers. With so many public accounts, it&amp;#039;s also super-easy to fall down a rabbit hole of &amp;quot;investigation.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I always check out that girl&amp;#039;s pictures just to see if he&amp;#039;s liked them, even though it probably doesn&amp;#039;t mean anything,&amp;quot; my friend sheepishly admitted. Instagram certainly is a dangerous venue for anyone predisposed to jealousy, though Weiss notes that it is important to remember that Instagram doesn&amp;#039;t cause obsessive behavior, it simply facilitates it. Despite the general lack of privacy, many people I spoke to had either met someone through Instagram or used it as a tool for connecting romantically. In fact, a few months ago I discovered the profile of an adorable, L.A.-based photographer and developed a fleeting Insta-crush. His pictures revealed that he was a Boston Terrier-loving hipster with a green thumb, and his full name was conveniently listed on his profile. I didn&amp;#039;t start following him or think much of it, until a few weeks later I noticed his name pop up on a friend&amp;#039;s Facebook page. I told her about my crush, and moments later she had connected us saying, &amp;quot;My friend thinks you&amp;#039;re cute. Contact her if you&amp;#039;re interested.&amp;quot; He added me on Instagram, and we ended up going out a few weeks later when he was in town. It&amp;#039;s no surprise that as the world has becomes increasingly digital, so has the art of seduction. Funnily enough, I can measure the start of my few longterm relationships based on the trending technology of the time. My college boyfriend introduced me to texting. He was from Europe, where he they had been doing it for years, he said. I&amp;#039;ll never forget seeing the words &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m crazy about you&amp;quot; pop up on my Nokia screen as I lay in the top bunk of my freshman dorm room. Facebook was integral to my next relationship. In 2007 we did international long distance, and I&amp;#039;m embarrassed to admit how many longwinded private messages and emo status updates there were. I remember being quietly pleased when he would switch his profile picture to a shot of the two of us (a public declaration!).  Now, here I am a few years later quietly enjoying likes from my crushes and sneakily scrolling through the feeds of romantic prospects, ex-boyfriends and randoms, and posting the occasional selfie that someone may Deep Like down the road. All I know is that regardless of all Insta-flirting and filtered versions of boys, nothing replaces the thrill of hearing from a someone say\u2014in person\u2014that they &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; me, or telling them the same. I&amp;#039;ll always prefer to meet a cute bartender at a bar, but that&amp;#039;s just me. Put the fun back in dating "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/tech/a4/instagram-online-dating/?src=rss>