Forums Forums White Hat SEO Social Media Friend/Acquaintance (private account) accepts request to follow them, but doesn’t follow back- why? Do you normally unfollow?

  • Friend/Acquaintance (private account) accepts request to follow them, but doesn’t follow back- why? Do you normally unfollow?

    Posted by seohelper on August 24, 2020 at 12:24 am

    A few weeks ago, I created a instagram account and start following a bunch of people (many were private, but all actively posting). All of these people were at a minimum a friend at one point in my life (some pretty close friends) but not people I necessarily interact with daily now. Most of them accepted my request to follow them, but didn’t follow me. I can understand why celebrities or people with thousands of followers don’t follow back, but am a little surprised someone I interacted with frequently would accept me and not bother to follow back.

    Why do people do this? Do they really want me to be on their account or felt obligated to accept? Is it rude if I decide to unfollow them after a few weeks or so? I thought the point of instagram/social media was to interact with each other, and if someone isn’t going to give a crap about even looking at my content, whats the point? Just curious what opinions on this are.

    kellykellykellykelli replied 3 years, 7 months ago 1 Member · 9 Replies
  • 9 Replies
  • kittiesaresoft

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 1:33 am

    Social media, in its design, has a tendency to give people a heightened sense of self importance. My guess is probably similar to yours – that they assumed your request was because you are interested in seeing what they’re doing and posting, not an invitation to reignite a friendship from the past. Is it impolite to unfollow? No. I don’t accept friend requests from past acquaintances I’m not interested in rekindling friendship with, and I regularly scrub my friend list so that I’m seeing things from people actually important in my life. Realistically, few will notice if you unfollow them until you’re recommended as a friend by the algorithm again in a few months.

  • kellykellykellykelli

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 1:44 am

    I unfollow them because I think it’s rude.

  • 2bitmoment

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 2:13 am

    You can interact with them on their posts so yes, you’re able to interact with them like this. Are you interested in them? Do you value them? Apparently they don’t necessarily value you that much – I tend to actually look at my feed. So if people are posting things I don’t like I unfollow. I think not all people work it like that – some people follow like a thousand accounts – your posts would get lost in a feed like that anyway. Not getting seen.

  • clamchauder

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 3:03 am

    Sorry this happened to you. It’s happened to me too. I also equate a follow back as just plain common courtesy. It hurt because these were people I interacted with on a daily basis, and they added others in our circle. After they also did something else that pissed me off, I decided to unfollow and keep things at acquaintance/surface-level.

  • jackfusco

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 3:11 am

    It could be a number of reasons. If they were friends you were looking to connect with, did you send them a message at all or just follow/like/comment?

    How many accounts are you following? If it’s in the hundreds or over 1k?

    Are they posting just personal stuff or is it art/business? If it’s the later, perhaps they only follow things related to what they are doing.

    Also, are you sure they know who you are by your account name? A lot of people keep their account private but still accept any request sent.

    It could be a number of things, but if you’re interested in catching up, send them a message! If they don’t reply and you’re not interested in a one side relationship of seeing what they’re up to, then unfollow

  • pample_meese

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 5:51 am

    2 points to this:

    1) you “want” your follower/following ratio to stay so that you’re being followed by more people you’re following so you feel cool (which is false and actually really stupid, but… social media)

    And

    2) I genuinely don’t care about most people’s day to day activities unless there’s a real reason to care. You can get a sense for whether or not you’ll stay in touch with someone in the future. If you’re not, why would you care about the random kid who went to your high school for 6 months then moved out of state’s vacation photos or fishing trips? You don’t.

    especially if I only met them a few times, like why do I give a darn that you went camping last weekend with people I’ll never know if I’ll never talk to you ever again?), then why would I rack up another

  • PsychologicalScript

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 7:50 am

    When people follow me (even if they’re acquaintances) I don’t really think about following back. It’s not hostile or anything. I just tend to use IG for recipes and other lifestyle stuff, I’m not too interested in what other people post unless they’re really close friends.

    I don’t post anything on my account either because I can’t see why anyone would care. It’s really pointless to me (except for the recipe stuff obviously)

  • patrick24601

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 9:17 am

    Mindset. People expect than a follow deserves a follow. And I’ve never understood why. You may not have mutual interests. Just because you follow me me and find what I do interesting doesn’t mean that I find you interesting.

    I don’t give it a second thought. I don’t research who follows me and I rarely follow back. It’s not rude. The list of who you find interesting and the list of who finds you interesting may not have any overlay. ??‍♂️

  • dixiechicks123

    Guest
    August 24, 2020 at 5:01 pm

    I have two instagrams. One for my work/everyday and a private.

    My private account is for my good friends only. It’s my safe space/people I know well.

    People who know me from years ago have stumbled across it, I think the algorithm makes it comes up as suggested because it’s the same phone. They have tried following but I never feel comfortable as they don’t really know me or what’s happening in my life.

    I’m quite a private person and don’t like posting really personal things on my public. I made that mistake years ago and my last breakup ended up going viral. I’ve learnt my lesson there. I got married last year and didn’t even post when I got married on my public account because cbf with the attention.

    So having people who I haven’t seen or spoken to over the phone in over 5+ years try to invite themselves into my safe space isn’t really a nice time for me. I’d rather keep some elements of my life private, regardless of how basic that account is. I can post a photo of me and my friends from a wild night out for nostalgia sake without people running around saying I’ve lost it? Or post crass memes on my story without it affecting my business? Even political views!

    I think there’s an expectation with people on Instagram to perform and to share everything to everyone and not have boundaries when it comes to sharing information to people.

    They don’t owe you access to their page. Maybe they have secrets they don’t want you to know? Different political views? Who knows. Are you actually friends with the person? When was the last time you hung out? Or called them? Everyone uses social media for their own reasons so you just don’t know.

    You could even maybe ask them what their views are?