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"Having a boyfriend, like having a dog or a houseplant, is so time consuming. You have to take care\u00A0of him,\u00A0tend to his enduring thirst,\u00A0spend time with him ... It's all\u00A0so much. Too much, one could even argue, if you're a Modern Woman With An Agenda,\u00A0like me.\u00A0But\u00A0even the most hardened of broads sometimes wishes for a bae to call her own. Valentine's Day is coming up, after all, and it'd be nice to Instagram a bouquet of flowers that didn't come from my mom (mom,\u00A0ILY but it's different). Also, after years spent tirelessly monitoring Instagram activity, I've deduced that nothing hits the big time in terms of \"likes\" as much as lonelygirl\u00A0thirst-trap pics that allude to having a boyfriend.\u00A0\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nIf anything, I figure the combination of Valentine's Day + being in a relationship + aesthetically pleasing flowers shot from above = potential triple digit-like territory, and the only thing keeping me from reaching such ecstasy is ...\u00A0 lacking\u00A0a boyfriend.\u00A0\n\nBut\u00A0I am nothing if not savvy AF\u00A0and have found a way to cash in on the likes without having to worry about roping in a man in time for V-day: faking an Instagram boyfriend.\u00A0Seems simple, I know, but it takes planning,\u00A0persistence, and\u00A0a few trusty accomplices.\u00A0The key to\u00A0this con is that it's a long one \u2014 you have to lay the groundwork early in order to really have followers believe you nabbed a doting boyfriend in time for the 14th. But start too soon, and you'll find yourself backed into a corner, flustering to explain your new boyfriend to your mom\u00A0by the time Valentine's Day rolls around.For one week, I did\u00A0the legwork for you\u00A0and come up with a foolproof plan to fake\u00A0an Instagram boyfriend. It's so simple, and it gets RESULTS. Consider this my personal guarantee.\u00A0Read on to get the likes you deserve on what's arguably the best worst holiday of the year.POST #1: LOVE BLOSSOMS OVER BRUNCH FOR TWOMy Instagram is\u00A0essentially an ode to single womanhood \u2014 I post a lot\u00A0of selfies (especially of the mirror variety), I post pics surrounded by female friends on girls' nights out, neon signs that just say\u00A0Wine,\u00A0and I've even been known to post pics of actual lines from\u00A0Sex and the City\u00A0(the book) that scream, \"I AM A SINGLE WOMAN IN NEW YORK!!!!\" Even in the throes of an IRL\u00A0relationship, I tend to keep my suitor separate from my feed.\u00A0Basically, for me to post anything that alludes to the fact that I've found love in a hopeless place (New York City) is huge\u00A0and would cause a disturbance in the\u00A0depraved-yet-somehow-cool-and-fun personal brand I've spent years perfecting.\u00A0So my first post was subtle \u2014 I needed it to fit in with my Instagram essence,\u00A0and I needed it to really look like I'd just met someone. This is important: You don't want to depart too quickly from your regularly scheduled Instagram programming. This is a rookie mistake, and you are a goddamn professional. Repeat this to yourself each morning:\u00A0I vow to maintain control over my personal brand. It's unbecoming to abandon\u00A0your online soul and integrity\u00A0just because you met a man. Feminism.\u00A0This delightful brunch\u00A0'gram came during winter storm Jonas. What better time to lasso\u00A0an unassuming man than during a time of environmental crisis?\u00A0Note that there are\u00A0two coffees (black, because we are hardened adults) and\u00A0two plates in this picture. Clearly, I was not alone. And the caption, my \"new friend\u00A0\uD83D\uDE1C?\" Not actually a new friend!\u00A0Just someone who agreed to sit across from me\u00A0while I shoved an inordinate amount of savory French toast into my mouth.\u00A0\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nNo one texted me to ask \"OMG who r u with!!?\" after this post, but that is OK. This is only the beginning. Patience, my children. You cannot rush such fine con artistry as this.POST #2: \"SOMEONE\" SENDS ME\u00A0FLOWERS AT WORKSomeone else in the office got some flowers from a #brand, and I thought,\u00A0Wow, those flowers look like the kind of thing a man might give a woman if he was trying to woo her and purchase her sex dowry.\u00A0So now, according to my Instagram,\u00A0the hot piece of ass I went to brunch with (\"someone not gross\")\u00A0sent me some flowers at the office! How sweet of fake Insta boyfriend.\u00A0People who follow me closely enough were meant to pick up this photo hint like the disgusting bait that it was.\u00A0\n\nBut it seems I overestimated my followers, because no one thought this post and its caption signified romance. In fact one follower, a close friend from college, simply commented \"granny,\" because she apparently thinks that only my grandmother would enact such a sweet gesture (she's not that wrong).I decided I had to ramp things up if people were going to believe me. Pull out all the stops.\u00A0This is no time for subtlety and nuance. I went\u00A0full-on lovelust.\u00A0POST #3: BEER \u2014 BECAUSE MEN LOVE BEERMidweek, an opportunity presented itself to interact with a male friend in the wild (at a dive bar). \"Perfect,\" I thought to myself, drumming my fingers mischievously, \"An opportunity to expand upon my boyfriend con.\"\u00A0Like all men before him, this friend ordered a beer. Ha HA, he fell right into my trap. I capitalized on the situation by snapping a quick dumpster pic, slapping a mediocre filter on it, and captioning it accordingly.\u00A0The lesson here is that the quality of the pic\u00A0does not matter nearly as much as the caption when it comes to wrangling faux-likes out of your idiotic followers. I mean, 21 hearts for a poorly lit pic of a gross beer bottle?\u00A0They had come for my newfound romance, and for the first time in this con,\u00A0I had my followers\u00A0right where I wanted.Something that helped here was that I had\u00A0found an accomplice at this point \u2014 a coworker, Danielle, helped me out by commenting with three\u00A0\uD83D\uDE0D. If anyone who followed me had any doubt, this comment solidified their suspicions: I was on a date, dammit, with a real, live man.\u00A0This post drew some response, as well. My first markers of success. Trophies, if you will.\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nDo I see a plot developing? You bet I do.\n\nPOST #4: I SUCCUMB TO SUBWAY PDA (SORT OF)At this point in the experiment, bolstered by the excitement of my first suspicions from friends, I reached an important crossroads. I had to decide how much I could afford to toe the line between staying on brand and going full-on Insta girl in love if I really wanted people to believe me. How much of my own integrity could I\u00A0maintain if I wanted to give the impression of being\u00A0truly happy in my relationship?\u00A0How much of myself was I willing to lose, in order to gain (a ton of likes)?I swallowed my pride and went for it \u2014 I decided to give my followers their first official glimpse at the hottie I'd been hiding from them for five whole days. I needed something bigger to fuel their newfound thirst for my budding, chronicled romance. I decided on a glimpse at his alleged hand.The key to pulling off this move is to be sneaky with your camera, and to be in a place with lots of people. What better place than a crowded subway car during rush hour? I simply placed my hand next to a man's on the rail, drew my phone in close, and snapped a pic. Boom, perfection.\u00A0Normally this kind of caption would be vomit-inducing, but I had to go for broke\u00A0if I wanted results. And boy, did they come in. This time my grandma (who I call Bonga, long story) texted me to find out who I was necking with on the L train.\u00A0With my family\u00A0on board, I deemed the caption, in all its unholy\u00A0disgrace, a success. \u00A0POST #5: \"WE\" GET COFFEE, AS LOVERS DO\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\nHaving relinquished myself for the previous subway caption, and feeling confident in my abilities to take creep shots of total strangers in public, I went even bigger with post no. 5. My coworker Danielle (who has an IRL boyfriend and takes killer Instas of him) told me that one of her most successful posts was a picture of hey boyfriend, holding coffee. It makes sense: People love hot men, and people also love hot coffee, so\u00A0I manufactured a situation in which I could stage such a photograph.Sunday morning, while waiting for my cortado (I am aware that I am terrible) in a local coffee shop, I sneakily took a pic of a man who was minding his own business, drinking coffee, and reading a book. The fact that he was reading a book was\u00A0opportune for me. He was utterly distracted\u00A0and didn't notice the strange woman taking a million pictures of his arms from a foot away.This picture was also one of my most aesthetically pleasing. The coffee\u00A0shop has big windows, and this man was dressed in the Good Man on Instagram uniform: gray sweater, dumb sunglasses.\u00A0This is exactly the way a man I would conceivably date might dress \u2014\u00A0this was a believable moment upon which to capitalize.\n\nAgain, an accomplice commented\u00A0\"I see u\" in order to help fool my followers into believing I was actually the kind of monster who would post a picture like this. And it worked.\u00A0A friend\u00A0texted me to say her roommate wondered who I was with, and why I hadn't said anything about him.I did notice, however, that this photograph got fewer likes than I anticipated. Were my followers growing tired of my already obnoxious relationship? Was this picture of a generic man in a generic Brooklyn coffee shop so unbelievable that I'd been found out? Or \u2014 my guess \u2014 was the caption simply\u00A0so terrible and so not\u00A0me that they turned away in disgust?\u00A0The struggle between brand and bae continues.POST #6: I SEAL THE DEAL WITH A THAI FOOD DATEWhat do couples do on Sunday nights? I don't really know, but I assume that some might enjoy a nice dinner out in public. Since\u00A0I'd already done a straight-up\u00A0food Instagram,\u00A0I decided I needed to do something better.\u00A0Keep my feed varied. Can't sacrifice all my Instagram integrity on my fake boyfriend.\u00A0To pull this off,\u00A0I shamelessly asked a friend to take some cute pics of me looking at my drunken noodles over dinner. Simple, but the\u00A0takeaway from this picture is that it is\u00A0not\u00A0a selfie. Note that both\u00A0of my hands are in the picture. Someone must have taken the pic. And to prove that it wasn't just a friend (which,\u00A0in actuality, it was) I captioned it with a pun (people in love fucking love puns) and said it was a date night.\u00A0I could kiss myself, this is so ingenious. And so easy. Again, people bought it.\u00A0But by now, after a week of these vague, disgusting, loveydovey posts, friends who've known me for a while were getting fed up. Who took this pic of me? Who could I have pulled out of the gutter and forced to date me? They were curious, and they needed answers I couldn't give.\n\tAdvertisement - Continue Reading Below\n\t\n\n\u00A0If you're\u00A0not careful, this can be your downfall.\u00A0Here's a little tip, from me to you: just don't respond to them with words! Emoji exist for a reason, and that reason is lying by omission. I decided to go with a simple, yet coy\u00A0\uD83D\uDE1C.\n\nWorked like a charm. In my opinion, the\u00A0\uD83D\uDE1C says\u00A0\"Yes, I have a new boyfriend who loves me but as I am a woman in love, I do not have time to tell you about it.\"\u00A0Or, in the worst case, \uD83D\uDE1C says\u00A0\"I've lost all mental capacity and\u00A0this emoji is the last thing standing between me and a breakdown.\"\u00A0This emoji is\u00A0also good for avoiding an outright lie to your friends that you can later be held accountable for, and it keeps you from having to waste\u00A0time inventing details about this fake person.\u00A0After all, it's one thing to lie without abandon on Instagram, but\u00A0it's quite another to just straight-up lie to close friends and family, and then have to explain to them\u00A0on the phone\u00A0that it's all a big rouse, you don't have a boyfriend, his name isn't Josh,\u00A0and perhaps you suddenly feel more alone than ever because you realized that faking it on IG was the most fun you've had on a date in months.\u00A0Now that my secret has been revealed, it's time for my Insta boyfriend and I to break up. He's been absolutely lovely, I enjoyed the likes these total lie posts brought,\u00A0but we're through. Time to move on.\u00A0I've missed posting my usual selfies and mirror selfies.\u00A0Insta boyfriends (and IRL boyfriends) come and go, but selfies are forever.Follow Hannah on Twitter."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a52955/how-i-faked-a-hot-new-boyfriend-on-instagram/>