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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/ParadoxicalState on 2023-08-11 16:48:04.
I am not the original poster. Original post by u/canada11235813 in r/tifu.
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trigger warnings: Mention of sexual content
mood spoilers: embarrassment, anxious anticipation, reflection
TIFU by accidentally liking an Instagram photo and now my life is probably over
Wed, July 26, 2023
My (55M) daughter (21F) still lives at home, but has full autonomy here. But I like to know what’s going on, so when she texted that she’s bringing a few friends over after school, it wasn’t to ask permission… just to let us know there might be a few more people over for dinner. No prob… who, I asked? She mentioned a few names I recognized and one I didn’t. Let’s call her Sally. Who’s Sally? Just another friend from Uni. OK, sounds good, see you later.
My idle curiousity led me to Instagram, just wondering who Sally is. I looked up my daughter’s IG list of who she follows, and found only one Sally whose profile indicated she attended the same Uni as my daughter. Obviously her.
That would’ve been it, except her profile caught my attention… because unlike most of her friends who have them set on private, this one was wide open to the public and it’s one of these typical young-beautiful-woman profiles full of selfies in exotic clothes and poses. I scroll down a bit and of course there are beach pics from last summer and like any normal red-blooded male, it catches my attention.
No, I’m not into girls my daughter’s age, I’m not some perv. But when those sorts of pictures show up on your phone, most guys would be lying if they told you it didn’t catch their attention for a closer look.
Anyway, I pause the scroll there and I screw up because I double tap it, and that dreaded big red “LIKE” heart shows up, right on some very revealing bikini pic. My actual heart actually stops for a moment too, I’m sure of it. I instantly unlike it, but, of course, the damage is done. Somewhere, Sally’s phone just got a notification that some user whose account shares the same last name as my daughter – liked that pic.
So, Sally will mention this to my daughter and I will be a dead man, and that’s it. It’s been nice knowing you all.
I realize there may be a saving grace here, which is that Sally, with her 20k followers and thousands of likes per pic might have notifications turned off, in which case this is a non-issue. Or, she gets so many notifications, she won’t notice because she ignores them and then clears them in bunches. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking. Or, as per above, I’m dead. I don’t really see many other alternatives.
For the moment, until I hear anything from someone, I feel like I’m anywhere from totally in the clear… to dead. Like I’m strapped into Schrödinger’s Electric Chair, waiting to find out which way the lever will fall.
TL;DR: Accidentally liked my daughter’s friend’s bikini pic on IG.
UPDATE:
Man, this really blew up in just a short amount of time. I can’t reply to every comment, but happy to address some of the common themes… and, below that, what ultimately happened.
One: First and foremost, perhaps it’s the way I wrote it, or perhaps it’s the way people just want to lash out at others for no real reason because their mind is already made up… but the point is this… there’s a tremendous difference between finding something attractive, and being attracted to it. I will freely admit, and call me what you want, that many women in their 20s posing in bikinis are attractive. Am I attracted to them, to the extent I’d approach and message and “shoot my shot” with them? No. But 200,000 years of evolutionary instinct is hard to fight, so if I’m at the beach and a pretty young woman walks by, I’m probably going to look. Like most people, men and women, young or old, for their own reasons, are also going to look. It’s not creepy. It’s simply being human.
All of these “yOu’Re A pErV!!!1!!!” comments lead me to ask you gatekeepers of what’s creepy or not the following question. If someone on a beach – or with a public-facing IG profile obviously meant to get views – isn’t meant to be looked at, who is deciding it? Like in this case, 21F young woman, who’s allowed to look at the profile? 25M? 30M? 35M? How about a 21M incel psycho? How about a 65F predatory lesbian? My feeling, clearly not shared by everyone, is that if you’re putting yourself out on display, you’re going to get looked at. I think that’s actually the idea, and there’s a far cry between being admired from a distance and having someone actually take it to any next step.
Two: Amused at many people asking for the IG account so they can see for themselves and perhaps flood my like out of the way… lol, no.
Three: I’m convinced she didn’t see it because I unliked it right away and as many people are saying, if it’s within 5 seconds, it never went out. I’m pretty sure my unlike was within 5 milliseconds.
And, here’s the update… daughter and friends and Sally showed up. There was zero hint of anything. No weird looks, no lingering glances, no little giggles. Very nice and normal dinner conversation, and that was it. Then the girls got all dolled up in pink and glossy lipstick and went off to the movies. Probably off to see Oppenheimer.
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