It starts like this:
You innocently log onto Facebook or Twitter to catch up with the world, and you notice a little “1” over your inbox tab notifying you that someone messaged you. You think, “Ooh, that’s exciting, I wonder who it is!” You click on it, and your excitement vanishes once you see those two words: “What’s up?”
What’s so bad about that, you might ask?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but probably 95 percent of the time, a random “hey” or “what’s up” message is from someone who has romantic/sexual motives, but is too cowardly to be straight up so they turn to the vague (and creepy) method of starting a conversation out of thin air about absolutely nothing over Facebook.
Situations like this happen to most girls I’ve talked to, and we are very perplexed by it. So, I’m here to advise you: DON’T BE THIS PERSON. Here is why:
Reason 1: First impressions are vital, and elusively messaging someone you’ve barely (or never) talked to in real life is not a good one. It creates confusion. The person you messaged is likely thinking, “Why is this person messaging me? Do they want something? Are they interested in me? I’m so confused. What is going on??” Get to the point or they will probably just stop replying.
Reason 2: If you do randomly message someone, it puts them in an awkward situation. Facebook and Twitter both have that awful feature where it shows when a person reads a message, which is a problem because if they read it and don’t reply, it comes off as rude. But if they do reply, the messenger may take that as a sign of encouragement, even if they were just being friendly. Which brings me to reason 3…
Reason 3: The person you’re messaging may very well already be dating/talking to someone and therefore not want to talk to someone else who has romantic motives. But how would you ever know if you just strike up a random conversation and don’t cut to the chase? Don’t assume someone is single and interested just because they reply; they could just be a friendly person and curious why you messaged them.
I’m not sure when this behavior started happening, but it’s really just unfortunate how some people consider this communication and courtship. Girls admire guys who straight up ask them to hang out much more than the random chit chatters. Instead of pointless small talk, maybe try starting a conversation with something along the lines of, “Hey, I noticed you in class and I was wondering if you’d like to get coffee sometime!” That is 100 times way more respectable and way more likely to get you an opportunity than a “hey cutie what’s up?” I promise.