Why do we like offline guys?

The internet is known to be one of the most widely used methods of making contact. You do not have to resort to dating apps either, of which there are many anyway, accessible to all and easy to use. It is enough to have an Instagram profile or, especially in the United States, Snapchat. Recently, however, there seems to be a strong counter-trend among younger people. More and more girls are expressing a desire to find a boyfriend who is "offline"," who does not have or use social networks and who has never been present on dating platforms.

The debate about the preference for "offline" partners, which has been meandering for some time, has been revived by a very specific event. The talk is of the marriage between Sofia Richie, daughter of Lionel and younger sister of Nicole, and Elliot Grainge, son of Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge. The two swore eternal love to each other in an elaborate, old-fashioned ceremony in the south of France at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes at the end of April. The point, however, is not that she is a child of the arts (these days we would say nepobaby) and he is a very wealthy music executive, that Paris Hilton and Cameron Diaz, among others, were present at the wedding or that the exclusive pictures were given to Vogue. No. The point is that Elliot has no online presence. He does have an Instagram profile, but it's completely empty. He only follows two other profiles: that of his wife, who immediately added his surname to hers, and that of his record label, 10kproject. A perfect example of a husband, according to several users who appreciated his behaviour.

Next to him, as a virtuous example, is Joshua Kushner, who has an approach that could be seen as the opposite, but only apparently. Indeed, on his profile, the younger brother of the Kushner (Jared) who married Ivanka Trump, only photos of his wife, supermodel Karlie Kloss, his muse and favourite subject, appear. His online choices scream to the world: I love my wife and consider her the most beautiful and important person in my life. That's all you need to know about me. Every woman's dream?



At the meeting point between Grainge and Kushner is Josh Hutcherson, incidentally Peeta from The Hunger Games, who, like Grainge, has a completely empty profile that he uses solely to comment in Spanish on the posts of his girlfriend, actress Claudia Traisac, preferably with a thousand emoji expressing love and admiration. Another person who is always mentioned when it comes to the topic of offline boyfriends is Marc Kalman, Bella Hadid's boyfriend. The man who maintains a personal style that is the height of normcore is constantly snapped taking pictures of his girlfriend, but he is almost never in front of the lens.

In short, the examples are there, and the girls hope their partners will follow them. One wonders about the motivations. On the one hand, there is certainly a growing desire to meet partners in a "natural" way, perhaps at a concert, in a bar or in the halls of university. The fatigue caused by online life also extends to dating life and the apps that promise to improve it, especially post-pandemic. So much so that some girls even post consistently and convincingly among the "icks" they receive from suitors, recorded by professional content creators. On the other hand, maybe there's also a kind of insecurity that makes you think, "If he met me on the internet and then we got together, what's to stop him from meeting someone in exactly the same way and breaking up with me?" In between, of course, is the satisfaction of seeing herself photographed and shared on her partner's profile and telling all her followers, "Look at my girl," which makes her proud and arrogant and, above all, visible and immediately registers as out of touch. The ego appreciates this, the followers a little less.