Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Hitting On Someone in Social Media: Know Your Platform

I should really start a relationship series. It would go something like: How Not to Date in Social Media

Maybe this is the first installment of that...

The overall theme, of which I've blogged about before, is that guys, for whatever reason are unable to construct the time-honored tradition of, "Hey, wanna go out? I know this great Cuban place to take you for dinner," or "This hot new movie is opening this weekend. Wanna go?" Complete and utter failure on that regard. Perhaps all that is too much of a commitment, and they just want sex. Fine. Just cross me off your list now then.

Here's what I've been getting a lot of lately: "Wanna chat?" or, if they feel really close, "Hey, I wanna chat with you sometime."

First of all, I spent most of the 90s and a good part of the 2000s chatting. I've seen the good sides of chat, and the horrific sides of chat (that being when one guy wanted to "chat" with me while he watched a porno in the background, and showed me said nonsense on his videocam). Chatting, for most guys these days, is the precursor to "sexting." And it doesn't take long to get from one to the next.

Which is why, these days, I only "chat" with friends and family. SELECT friends and family. They had to beg me, in fact, to turn on my FB chat. I used to chat with hundreds, and be open to the whole world, but not these days.

Here's the other thing, though. FB chat (which turns into emails of the person you're chatting with) isn't strictly old-school chat, but it functions as such sometimes. IN NO CIRCUMSTANCE, however, is Twitter to be used as "chat."

Do people not realize this?

Every Tweet you type goes out to your ENTIRE TWITTER FEED. Every one I type back goes out to MY ENTIRE TWITTER FEED, which is close to 2000 people. I don't want to bore 2000 people with this convo: "What's up?"
"Not much. You?"
"Not much either."

SERIOUSLY?

First of all, I am APPALLED at your social gaffe, to not realize this collossal social blunder you are committing here.

And even taking this convo to DMs, which is proper social etiquette, is wrong on a personal level, because in any forum, I'm bored silly by this convo.

"We should chat more," he says. Really? You sure aren't convincing me of that.

Not to mention that because you use Twitter as your own personal "chat" stream, I've seen you hitting on other girls this way. Very uninteresting.

Here's how it works for me.

For the most part, I use Twitter to hear and talk to the masses of people on the Earth. I'm most open to following new people on Twitter, just to hear their voice, and the kinds of things they say.

When I've listened to them awhile, if what I've been reading is pleasing, I will accept a friend request on Facebook. But even there, I get the random, "Let's chat," in email.

This guy, for example. "I'd like to get to know you."

Mind you, my feed on FB, as my friends will tell you, is pretty much Michelle as an open book. There are all kinds of things that I'm posting, which are of interest to me, that you could comment on. We could see if we have similar interests. That's how I get to know YOU.

No. He doesn't do that. He "wants to chat." Tells me, in English and Spanish, that I'm "so beautiful." Not much more than that. As if I'm so gullible that hearing someone call me beautiful is going to make me trip into their arms. Um, no.

Wow me. Impress me. Stun me with your witticisms. Or, for heaven's sake, ASK ME OUT.

Why is that so difficult for boys today?

As for both of the two in this (true life) story, I've unfollowed/unfriended them. Life's too short.

Oh, and another thing: Don't call me "dear." It's demeaning.

And don't describe intimate sexual things you want to do to me if you haven't even KISSED ME. Seriously, people. Have some decorum.

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UPDATE: As I went to unfriend the FB guy, I read that his profile just went from "married" to "single." So all these months, when he's been trying to initiate chat with me, he was MARRIED anyway. *eyeroll*

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