Run Game Conversation

Staying in touch on Instagram after you meet

6 min read

When someone gives you her Instagram instead of her number, the useful move is to take it at face value and keep the next step small. One light message, then one low-pressure invite if she's replying. If she isn't, you let it rest. That's the whole plan, and the rest of this post is about doing each part without it getting heavy.

This is for someone you've actually met: a conversation at a coffee shop, a friend-of-a-friend, a class. It isn't about messaging strangers. If you're past the handle stage and want her number, how to go from Instagram DMs to her number covers that.

What a handle means (and what it doesn't)

A handle is ambiguous, and you can't tell which meaning you've got from the handle alone. A few common ones:

Don't read more into it than that. Treat it as a small yes to keeping in touch, then watch how the messages go. Her replies will tell you far more than the handle did.

Follow, then wait for the opening

Following her is the lowest-effort signal there is. Do it the same day or the next, so the conversation is still fresh. If her account is private, the request just sits there until she accepts, and that's fine. Don't send a second request from another account, and don't ping her to say you sent one.

Then hold off on liking six old posts. A couple of days of nothing special is normal. You're not trying to appear on her screen as often as possible. You're trying to be easy to reply to when you do show up.

The first message: one light reply

Send one message that refers to something real from your conversation, ideally with a question she can answer in a sentence.

If she's posted a story or photo, a reply is fine, as long as you say something specific rather than a fire emoji (how emoji and photos land is covered in emoji, photos and voice notes). "Where was this taken? Looks great" opens more than a reaction does.

Two pieces of research are relevant here, with limits. In a set of five studies on first conversations (Boothby and colleagues, 2018), people consistently underestimated how much their conversation partner liked them (the summary doesn't give sample sizes). And in a series of studies with more than 5,900 participants (Liu and colleagues, 2022, as summarized by PsyPost), people who reached out to acquaintances underestimated how much the message would be appreciated. Neither study was about dating, and the second looked at relationships with a positive history. They don't show she'll like your message. They do suggest that the voice telling you it's too forward is often too pessimistic.

Keep it up without playing the story game

Some habits make Instagram feel like a performance, and they tend to wear people out:

A rule of thumb that works for many people is to roughly match her pace and length. If she sends two lines every day or two, send two lines every day or two. If she replies once a week, you've learned something useful, and you can adjust. Double texting covers what to do when you've sent a message and heard nothing.

If the chat is going well and she's the one asking questions back, you can move toward a plan. If a quick call starts to feel like the next step, choosing between a call and a text covers asking first. How to start a conversation over text has more on keeping the topics easy once you're talking.

One low-pressure invite

After a few real exchanges (she's asking you things, replying within a day or so), make one invite. Specific, short, easy to decline.

"I'm going to that farmers market on Saturday morning. Want to come along for an hour? If not, no worries."

A few things make an invite easier to say yes to: a clear day, a short time, a public place, and a line that lets her say no without drama. A twenty-minute coffee is a smaller ask than dinner.

She might say yes, say "maybe, let me check," or suggest another day. All three are movement. A reply that suggests an alternative is usually a stronger signal than a polite "sounds fun" with nothing attached.

When to stop

Stop when the signals line up against you:

After any of those, send nothing more. You can leave the follow in place. Don't ask why, and don't send a "no worries!" message that really means "please reply." Silence after an invite is often an answer, and an explicit no certainly is one. Either way, you stop.

For context on why this matters: in a Pew Research Center survey of 6,034 U.S. adults in July 2022, 30% of online dating users said someone had continued to contact them after they said they weren't interested, including 43% of women under 50 who'd used dating sites or apps. That survey was about dating apps, not Instagram DMs, but it describes the experience on the other end of persistent messaging.

What to do next

  1. Follow her within a day of meeting, then wait. Don't send a second request or a message about the request.
  2. Send one message that refers to something from your real conversation, with a question she can answer in one sentence.
  3. Match her pace for a week. Write what you sent and when she replied, so you can see the pattern instead of guessing.
  4. After three or four real exchanges, make one invite with a day, a place and a way out: "Saturday morning, 40 minutes, no pressure."
  5. If two messages go unanswered or she declines without an alternative, stop. Leave the follow and move on.
  6. If you log approaches in Run Game, the optional note is a good place to write what you two talked about. It makes the first message easier to write.

Sources