Why Is It So Awkward Telling Your (Potential) Dates That You’re A Blogger?

I really struggled with the terminology to use in the title of this post. Of course, by “potential dates” I’m referring to men that you meet that you might potentially be interested in dating. I wanted to say guys, but that’s too general. I wanted to say ‘matches’, but that excludes everyone you may meet IRL (do people still meet in bars? Asking for a friend…) and then I also wanted to say lovematches but that was a bit weird.

Anyway, settling on potential dates, I’ll carry on shall with the post… I made a really rather low-key embarrassing mistake last month. On one of my dating app profiles, instead of uploading a cute candid from my Instagram page, I’d uploaded a screenshot of that cute candid post which included my Instagram handle, and that little orange bubble denoting 97 new likes,  and that the pic itself had amounted above 2k likes in total, as if I was trying to show off that I think that I’m big time or something. What. A. Dick. But of course, as a thumbnail on my camera roll, it had cropped that all additional info off so I thought it was just the original image within the confines of the square. So upload I did, and like a big twat I felt.

So first off I looked like a dick. Second off, it gave guys full access into peeking into my Instagram world and my ‘online self’ (I feel perhaps I need to write a post about the differences between me online and IRL soon…) At first, when guys kept asking about my job and Instagram etc, I just thought they were all a bit weird and/ or had admirable/ quite creepy FBI-levels of stalking ability. But then on realising my mistake, here I am. Feeling a bit like an idiot.

But I shouldn’t be too embarrassed really, because without that picture it still always goes the same way. Match on Tinder/ Bumble/ Happn, some funny opening lines are thrown out from both parties, then the “so what is it you do for a living?” commences.

My dating app profile pics are pulled straight from Instagram. They’re the less posey ones, of course, and all shot on an iPhone, but they’re still a bit more posey and perfected than your average dating app profile pic. So more often these days, I’ve had men asking me directly “you must work in fashion!?” or worse, as any of you girls reading this are also bloggers will know is all too real – ” are you a model?!”

I lament.

And now, some are getting straight to it by asking up front, “are you a blogger?”

Well, I don’t want to lie. So I always say yes. And they’re off trying to get my blog name and Insta handle for full stalking capabilities. Do I blame them? Of course not. Do I like it? Of course not.


You might be wondering why I care to keep something I do so publicly so private – why I have a problem about giving away access of that side of me to random men on the internet when I’m handing it out like a freebie on my gram twice daily and they could find it anyway? I mean, good question.

I rarely tell people my blog name as I like them to make their judgements based on me as a real life person, rather than me on the internet. I’d never say that real life me is very different to my internet self, at all, but it’s more a case of that I put a lot on here. I write a lot about my opinions and experiences, there’s YouTube videos and Instagram Stories that show my mannerisms and voice. And they get access to all of this where all I have is 5 photos from their dating profile (one with top off, one with a puppy, one with friends, mirror selfie, and one on holiday – standard) and a bio revealing they are ‘taller than me in heels’ alongside a handful of emojis.

The playing field starts off less than level. If this was a game of strip poker, he’d be fully clothed and I’d be totally naked. It’s an exposure thing that comes as part and parcel of putting your life out online – people can find out a lot more about you. But I’d rather rock up to the date knowing we’re both equal in what we know about each other. And at the end of the day, what can I really talk about if he’s already seen everything I’ve been up to all week, the cocktails I had with the girls and the fact that I had Nandos for dinner last night by way of my Instagram stories?

Then, of course, there’s the judgement of the job. for research, I asked some real life men about what they’d think if they were trying to chirpse a girl who was a blogger…

“I think it’s cool but I just think what do they do with all of that free time?” 


“It’d strangely make me more interested than if she worked in marketing, but on the other hand I’d think she was pretty self-obsessed and more likely to be narcissistic than a standard girl”


“Tbh I reckon she’s just a bit fame hungry. And that she’d probably ask me to take her photo on the date if I took her to somewhere cool”

OKAY GREAT.

Am I doomed? I am doomed.

And if you’re a dating app man, hi, why don’t we go for a drink so you can make a judgement on real life me? xoxo