We’ve all done it: been a good three-years-deep into someone’s Instagram profile - someone you fancy, natch, a person in front of which, you intend to ‘play it cool’ - and then SLAM. Then BANG. Then WHAM CRAM FLAM you’ve liked a photo by accident.
You, for some reason, thought that double-tap meant zoom (what were you zooming in on, eh?), and you’ve gone and sodding well liked a beach picture, haven’t you. The worst type of photo to like, and you’ve liked it. You are an internet perve, and you will never marry this person. Delete all social media. Live in a cave.
OR DON’T. It is not the end of the world. There are steps you can take to minimise the chance of the other person seeing your wayward like. Here’s a list of methods to combat this most heinous of mistakes. Godspeed:
Method 1: Unlike it IMMEDIATELY
Unfortunately, if whoever owns the account that you’ve just brazenly smashed your big fist into, is looking at their phone when you like the photo and they have push notifications enabled, they will know it’s you. There is no escaping this. You have been caught. Your life is over.
However, if they’ve got their phone on silent in their pocket, then you have options, baby. The first is to simply shout “OH MY GOD” and then unlike the post as quick as you can. An unliked post will disappear very shortly from their notifications after you liked it in the first place. As such, if they only check Instagram intermittently, your bad, terrible, horrendous like will be invisible to them. You are Scott Free, the world’s jammiest superhero.
Method 2: Like their latest post
A good way to trick Instagram is to, as before, immediately unlike the post after screaming, then like the person’s latest post. That way, they will only receive a notification for the second like, and will not know that your first careless finger banged a photo from 2014.
There is a downside, of course - this only really works on a person’s account that you would be happy to like, anyway. If you were stalking someone you don’t even follow, then liking their latest picture will be just as weird. Maybe just slam ‘follow’ and be done with it. Suck it up, you scumbag.
LORD ABOVE, WHY MUST YOU SLIGHT ME SO? TAKE ME TO HEAVEN, WHERE I AM SAFE AND THE DOUBLE-TAP LIKE DOES NOT EXIST. I MUST ASCEND NOW
Method 3: Change your profile
This is drastic, but if you’re ultra-paranoid about the death sentence you’ve just acquired, then what you can do, is set your profile to private, then change your name, bio and profile picture. The other person - providing they didn’t see it straight away - will think a random person has liked their post. This is very extreme and perhaps pointless - due to the small amount of time your accidental like will remain in their notifications - but it works, probably.
Might not, though, if you’re already private and they follow you. Might have to go the whole hog and block them, in that case. Yes, this is all critically desperate, but then that is the single photo that you should not have liked - any one but that, literally any of the other ones would have been fine, but you had to like that one you cack-handed oaf.
Method 4: Delete, delete, delete
This is the most excessive of the methods, but it has a 100% success rate. Take the following steps to ensure complete absolution:
1. Unlike the photo
2. Delete your Instagram account
3. Submerge your phone in a bowl of olive oil
4. Force it down your throat and massage your neck and chest until you are sure it is in your stomach
5. Take some Immodium
6. Book a flight to Hawaii
7. Once there, locate Mauna Loa
8. It is one of the last active volcanoes on the island, jump into it
Phew!
(Images: Getty)