Exchanging an IG (Instagram) is as ubiquitous to our modern day dating culture as turkey is on Thanksgiving.

When you are corresponding with a match on an online dating site and feel like it’s time to exchange contact information, it’s a little bit of a challenge to figure out which to give out.

Your IG or your phone number?

Those who resort to exchanging IGs have found out the hard way that this is often a one-way ticket to obscurity.

You see, when you exchange IGs with a match on a dating app, you fall into the same bucket as so many of the person’s followers.

You become a statistic.

There is an impersonal nature to communicating with someone online.

Messaging the person through IG makes you as inconsequential as many of her followers who have been vying for her attention on social media.

Social media is too distracting.

There is too much attention directed at her.

It doesn’t set you apart to be just another follower.

There may be consistent messaging in the beginning, but it doesn’t take long before the messaging becomes inconsistent, and you fall into the category of nothing but a follower as she somewhat forgets about you.

It’s one thing to give your IG out to someone that you are looking to as a potential friend or acquaintance, it’s another thing to give it out to a love interest.

A dating app is already a meat market filled with people vying for each other’s attention.

To transition from there to IG puts you in yet another meat market, a much bigger one.

Why do this to yourself when your intention is to set yourself apart from every other romantic potential that is vying for her attention?

It’s better to exchange phone numbers with her.

Unlike IG, this is so much more personal.

You aren’t vying for her attention like so many of her IG followers are.

She isn’t distracted by their messages and likes.

When you are talking to her on the phone, it is intimate. It is just the two of you without distractions.

This is where you want to be.

Falling into the trap of exchanging IGs with her is putting yourself on the backfoot way too early.

Why put yourself in a social media environment where an even greater number of men are trying to get her to go out on a date with them than she has on dating apps?

Not wise.

It’s not that you can’t exchange IGs.

It’s just better to do it at a later date, after you have built consistent rapport with her through having phone conversations and going out on dates.

By this juncture, you have set yourself apart from other men, which reduces the chances that you just become a statistic when you do give her your IG.

Oftentimes, it’s tempting to give out the IG in lieu of a phone number, so as to gain access to discovering what her life is like.

Don’t be fooled.

People post what they want you to see on social media.

You really don’t know what she is all about until you talk to her intimately by phone, go out on dates with her and get a firsthand account of what her life is like in person.

So many people get lost and bedazzled with what they see on IG, expecting her to be exactly the same in real life.

And this isn’t always the case.

On the few occasions she agrees to go out with a guy on a date, he often finds out that there are a number of inconsistencies between what her IG posts and photos suggest and what her real life is like.

Forget about her IG for now.

Prioritize getting to know her as a person through phone conversations and dates.

Her IG isn’t going anywhere.

Exchanging IG information can come later.