Digital technologies have changed the way we meet, flirt and fall in love. Pre-internet, your dating pool was limited to people you actually knew in real life, or could be introduced to by friends or family. If you were really desperate, you might put a personal ad in a newspaper or lonely hearts column (the original Craigslist).
Online dating opened the floodgates, giving us all access to a much broader range of potential partners. These days, around 20 per cent of people meet their partners online – a number that increases to around 70 per cent among same-sex couples.1 Some research even suggests that online dating has contributed to an increase in interracial marriages, by making it easier for people to date outside of traditional social circles.2
The idea of digitally assisted dating has its roots in 1959, when two Stanford students used an IBM computer to match men and women based on punch-card questionnaires. Four decades later, the dating services we recognise today started appearing, with the launch of Match.com in 1995, soon followed by JDate (for Jewish singles), eHarmony and OKCupid. Fast-forward another 15 years and mobile apps such as Grindr and Tinder kicked online dating firmly into the smartphone era, introducing the idea of location-based matching and the now-ubiquitous ‘swipe-right-for-yes, swipe-left-for-no’ mechanism.
With hundreds of potential dates just a few taps away, it’s never been easier to put yourself out there, but when it comes to matters of the heart there’s no cheat code. Digital tools have brought new form to age-old anxieties, as well as giving rise to a whole new set of dating dilemmas. What is the etiquette of sexting? How can you slide into someone’s DMs without looking like a sleazeball? Is ghosting ever OK? And what does any of that even mean?
Here we will navigate the perils and pitfalls of digital romance. It’s a constantly evolving field, but while apps come and go and social mores shift, bear in mind that pretty much all relationship etiquette (digital or otherwise) ultimately boils down to two things: consent and reciprocity. Get those two covered and you can’t go too far wrong. In short: don’t be a creep.
ONLINE DATING
There are approximately one zillion dating sites and apps out there, from the sort that have enough mass-appeal to advertise on prime-time TV to those of a much more niche variety. Only interested in dating fellow vegans? Take your pick of plant-based matchmakers. Looking to satisfy your most peculiar fetish? There are places where your wildest kink will be considered thoroughly vanilla. Think you could only truly connect with someone who shares your passion for Star Trek? There are multiple Trekkie-specific dating sites.
Most dating services are open to all genders and sexual orientations, although many of the biggest names assume heterosexuality by default. Some, such as Grindr and HER, specifically target LGBTQI communities. It should go without saying, but do not try to hijack an app targeted at a community you’re not part of. I’m looking at you, heterosexual guys: stay off the lesbian profiles. If you’re looking for a third-party ‘unicorn’ for your fantasy threesome, there are literally apps for that.
Different platforms have different reputations, and there’s even evidence that people’s behaviour changes with the weather, giving rise to a phenomenon known as ‘cuffing season’. Nothing to do with leather and chains, cuffing season describes the time period from autumn through to spring, when the cold weather sets in and previously happy-go-lucky singletons find themselves longing to couple up with someone to see through the winter. Suddenly, everyone you know seems to be settling down in a lovestruck hibernation. Once the frost thaws, however, it’s back to business as usual: OKCupid reports an average 17 per cent increase in people looking for a one-night stand across April, May and June.
THE DATING PROFILE
Writing a dating profile is hard. Perhaps that’s why so many people don’t bother, leaving the text box either entirely blank or dashing off a few clichés that really say nothing at all. On the positive side, this means that it’s really not difficult to be better than most other people.
Start with the basics. Think of your profile as a CV for romance: the aim is to make enough of an impression on paper that you get invited to an interview (or, in this case, on a date). You’ll usually be asked to give your first name or a nickname. Don’t add your surname; you don’t want to make it too easy for any old internet stalker to find out your real identity. You’ll also need to give some basic information such as your age, sex/gender and location – ‘a/s/l’ as it was called in the olden days, when people still used chat rooms. Do not lie about your age. It’s deceitful, it’s sleazy, and it’s hardly an auspicious start to a relationship if you’re lying to someone before you’ve even met.
Some sites will ask for more specific information – Are you religious? Are you a smoker? Do you like to be tied up in bed? – and then there’s usually a spot to write a brief personal bio. Keep it concise and upbeat. You’re trying to make yourself look approachable; this is not the place for philosophical monologues, deep and meaningful chats, or your in-depth opinions on Brexit.
Here’s a simple four-part template to get you started:
1. A catchy opener
This is your ice-breaker. Keep it short and sweet.
2. A description of yourself
This is basically your Sleepless in Seattle moment. You want to summarise who you are in just a few words – like ‘Full-time barista, part-time bass-player’ or ‘Shy Northerner, new in town’.
Choose something that speaks specifically to the kind of person you are. Avoid listing generic positive traits; people will assume you’re decent, kind and friendly unless you show them otherwise.
You don’t really need to describe your personality – that’s more easily done through actions than words – but if you want to give it a shot, stick to a maximum of two or three adjectives. A long list of character traits can easily be construed as just one: self-obsessed.
WHAT YOUR DATING BIO REALLY
SAYS ABOUT YOU
‘Confident’ – Loud
‘Mature’ – Boring
‘Old-Fashioned’ – Sexist
‘Adventurous’ – You did a gap year
‘Fun’ – Promiscuous
‘Introverted’ – Narcissistic
‘Ambitious’ – Workaholic
‘Spontaneous’ – Basic
‘Open-minded’ – Kinky
‘Creative’ – You work in marketing
‘Spiritual’ – You went to Burning Man once and like to tell everyone that it’s ‘not just an event, it’s a state of mind’
‘Easygoing’ – You won’t text back
3. Your hobbies and interests
How you spend your time says a lot more about you than any self-description could. There’s also another reason this section is important to include: it gives people something to latch on to when they first message you. As much as you’re trying to give a sense of who you are, you’re also offering up a ready-made ice-breaker, giving people the opportunity to say ‘I like horror films too,’ or ‘What’s the last sci-fi book you read?’
Again, make it specific. Literally everyone likes ‘food, fun and travel’ and you’re helping no one with the classic ‘I like going out and staying in.’ It’s more remarkable if you don’t like coffee and pizza than if you do, and I refuse to believe that anyone feels that passionately about the Oxford comma.
A few examples will do; you’re just trying to give a sense of your taste, not an encyclopaedic breakdown of your cultural psyche. Relationships are not made or broken on the back of the exact ranking of your top 10 punk records (as long as The Clash are in there somewhere).
On mobile apps, emoji are often used as shorthand for hobbies. If you’re wondering why so many Tinder users seem to be keen gardeners, know that the leaf emoji usually implies an interest in marijuana, not rhododendrons.
4. What you’re looking for
You don’t want to present a list of demands, but you do want to indicate what sort of person you’re hoping to meet and what sort of relationship you’re after. Whether you’re hoping to start an LTR (‘long-term relationship’) or are just DTF (‘down to fuck’) is totally fine – so long as the people you talk to are after the same thing. Things get a bit awkward when you’re looking for a smutty hookup and they want someone to take home to their mother.
Keep it light; you don’t want to scare people off. Something like, ‘Looking to meet laid-back people for Netflix and chill,’ or ‘Hoping to find a like-minded person to share my life with’ should adequately convey your intentions.
DECODING DATING ACRONYMS
Not sure what they’re into? Here’s a translation of some common dating site acronyms
BDSM – bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadism and masochism, i.e. kink
DTF – down to fuck
FWB – friend with benefits
LDR – long-distance relationship
LTR – long-term relationship
NSA – no strings attached
ONS – one-night stand
DATING PROFILE DON’TS
Perhaps more important than what to put on your dating profile is what to avoid. There’s nothing more disheartening than swiping through profile after profile and coming across the same cringeworthy bios again and again.
Maddie Holden, a lawyer and writer from New Zealand (and also the creator of the hilarious – and very NSFW – ‘Critique my Dick Pic’ Tumblr), was so disillusioned with the bios she saw while online dating that she started a side-hustle offering advice on people’s profiles for $25 a pop. It all started when she was writing a guide to dating app Bumble for a men’s lifestyle site and her editor asked her to take screenshots of some of the best examples of profiles she came across. ‘I really struggled,’ she says.
One of the most grievous mistakes, Holden adds, is what she calls the ‘wish list’ – when people rattle off a shopping list of traits their prospective match should or shouldn’t have. Negative wish lists are the worst. ‘Some women do this too,’ she says, ‘but it does seem to be more of a male trend, where they say, “I don’t like girls who do duck face,” or, “I don’t like girls who use the Snapchat dog filter,” or, “I’m not into women who wear too much make-up.”’ Entitled much? You’re supposed to be selling yourself, not putting in an order at Dates ‘R’ Us.
Avoid the following faux pas and you’re well on your way to a profile worthy of a swipe right.
Clichés
‘Work hard, play harder.’
‘It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.’
‘Insert witty profile here.’
Cringe. Not forgetting the worst: ‘Looking for a partner in crime.’ Excuse me while I wipe the vomit off my phone screen.
Unoriginal jokes
The thing about jokes is they’re supposed to be funny. Anyone who’s spent more than ten minutes scrolling through a list of Tinder hopefuls will know that sinking feeling when you swipe right on someone you think has a great sense of humour – only to then see the same jokes repeated again and again in other people’s profiles. You know the ones:
‘Looking to leave the single market before the UK does.’
‘I’ve got plenty of suits so I make a great +1 for weddings.’
‘“Five stars!” – my mum.’
You might think you’re coming across as a great wit, but really all you’re saying is ‘I’m so boring I had to google what to put in my dating app bio.’
Excuses about online dating
‘Can’t believe I’m on here.’
It’s nearly 2020, love, we’re all on here. How else do you expect to meet someone – in real life? Pervert.
Your height
The obsession with people featuring their height on their dating profiles truly baffles me. For many, it’s the first attribute they list. Surely the fact you can reach the top shelf in Sainsbury’s isn’t your number one selling point? And if it is, perhaps you should get a hobby.
I’ve heard various justifications for including height, with straight men often complaining that they feel obliged to include theirs because women are only interested in men taller than them, and women complaining that they feel pressured to list theirs because men are only interested in women smaller than them. At this point, it seems that everyone is simply including it because everyone else does. While it’s fine to have preferences, measuring someone’s potential in feet and inches seems rather reductive to say the least (and no, putting something snarky like ‘6′ 2″ seeing as everyone seems to care’ doesn’t make you any better than the rest).
In any case, judging by all the men on dating sites who seem convinced that they’re well over six foot, the numbers count for little. According to the Office for National Statistics, the average height for a man in the UK is five foot nine – so unless tall men are somehow more predisposed to use dating apps than the rest of the population, a lot of people are being rather liberal with the tape measure. In the US, OKCupid compared people’s heights on their profiles to height distribution across the country, and concluded that both men and women exaggerate by about two inches.
You definitely don’t need to give any other anatomical descriptions or, ahem, measurements. At least save it until you know each other well enough to private message.
Your Myers-Briggs personality type
Like many dating app users, I was initially puzzled by these strange acronyms peppering people’s profiles. INTJ? ESFP? Were they secret societies? Some new dating slang, like the old GSOH (‘good sense of humour’) and WLTM (‘would like to meet’)?
No, these are Myers-Briggs types – the results of a popular personality test, most likely self-administered on a dodgy free website. The letters stand for different personality traits, with each one representing one option from a pair of characteristics: ‘extraversion/introversion’, ‘sensing/intuition’, ‘thinking/feeling’ and ‘judging/perceiving’.
But although the test is popular among online daters, its scientific validity is questionable at best. Common criticisms include the fact that it relies on people giving objective assessments of themselves; that it forces people to categorise themselves in a binary way that doesn’t reflect the breadth of human nature; and that the traits described are vague enough that they could feasibly apply to just about anyone – like a more intellectual-sounding horoscope.
And the thing is, even if you’re confident that your Myers–Briggs type accurately reflects your personality, just listing those letters on your bio really doesn’t say much. So you’re an introvert who values intuition and thinking and prefers perception to judgement. What exactly is one of those when it’s at home?
TMI
A final word of warning: remember that your dating profile will be visible to anyone else using the service, and it’s not unlikely that could include people you know, such as coworkers, family members and ex-lovers. I once matched with someone on Tinder who bore a striking resemblance to a former flame – only to find out that he was, in fact, the same person. Reader, he had legally changed his name.
It’s therefore best not to put anything on your public profile that you wouldn’t want bringing up at the family dinner table or after-work drinks; save any particularly juicy details or personal proclivities for private chat.
And if you do come across someone you know and aren’t interested in romantically, the best etiquette is to swipe left, move on, and never, ever mention it.
DATING APP PHOTOS
However much work you put into your bio, the thing that will catch people’s eye first is your photo. It’s easy to hand-wring about how online dating has turned us all into awful, shallow airheads who only care about looks, but really this isn’t a fault of technology. We’re visual creatures; don’t try to tell me that if you were on a night out and looking to chat someone up, the first thing you’d notice would be their glowing personality.
And it’s not just physical attraction. How someone looks can reveal a lot more about them. Consider all the cues we pick up on in real life, such as facial expressions, gestures and fashion sense. Do they have a genuine smile? Does their pose exude confidence, or do they seem more of the shy kind? Have they got good style, or are they the kind of person who still wears their hair in curtains, 20 years after the Backstreet Boys reached their peak?
First things first: you want a clear and accurate (i.e. recent) image that shows your face. Make sure it’s decent quality – there’s no excuse for a grainy or blurry photo when everyone’s walking around with a high-spec camera in their pocket – and put some effort into it. Take a few minutes to tidy up whatever’s in the background and check the lighting is flattering. Don’t use flash, it adds years.
Most dating platforms will let you add multiple photos. Make them varied. Think one headshot, one full-body picture, and a few images that show you in whatever you consider to be your natural environment. The general consensus is that shirtless pics are a no, smiles are a yes, and you should limit yourself to one or two selfies at most.
The Tinder school of portraiture
The rise of dating apps has inspired a whole new movement in photography. Here’s a brief guide to some of the more prominent artistic trends:
The cute animal picture
If you get close enough to something cute, it’ll rub off on you, right? That seems to be the logic behind the cute animal picture, which features the subject holding a puppy, kitten or other miscellaneous fluffy thing. And to be fair, it’s not exactly wrong.
The gym selfie
The gym selfie has a strictly defined aesthetic: shot in the mirror, shirtless or wearing only a sports bra, with the subject’s flexed abs taking up the majority of the frame. Sometimes their head isn’t even in shot. Once you’ve seen a couple of these, you’ve seen them all. Yawn.
The bathroom selfie
You’ve just touched up your make-up and you’ve caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror looking pretty fine, if you say so yourself. I get it, sometimes bathrooms have really good lighting. Just make sure the background’s reasonably tidy. If the loo is in shot, it’s an instant swipe left.
The Where’s Wally? group shot
This is a classic: the shot of four or five people, any one of whom could be the person in the profile. The idea behind the group shot is presumably to prove that you’re a person who has friends, and who has fun with their friends. What a friendly, fun person you must be! If you’re lucky, someone might even confuse you with your better-looking mate …
The ‘They’re siblings, right?’ double portrait
A pared-back version of the group shot, this photo shows the subject just a bit to close to someone else. They might have their arm around them, or be looking into their eyes. You’re not sure if it’s a sibling or an ex, but either way, it’s a weird photo to pick. Just as bad is the picture that’s clearly been cropped to cut someone – almost definitely an ex this time – out of the frame. Awkward.
The wedding guest portrait
Someone once told you you looked good in a suit, so here we are. You’re hoping people might think you have some kind of flash job that means you always dress like this, but the floral buttonhole gives it away. You think you look like James Bond, but in reality, you’re more Johnny English.
The look-how-good-I-am-with-kids picture
This idea comes from a similar place as the cute animal picture, but with very different results. Including pictures of children on your dating profile, in any context, is just creepy. Think about it: you’re trying to use your kids to pull strangers on the internet. Or worse: you’re trying to use someone else’s kids to pull strangers on the internet.
The exotic animal picture
What you’re trying to say with this is that you’re totally into nature and saving the tigers and stuff. What you’re actually saying is that you went to some questionable ‘sanctuary’ to pose with a probably drugged wild animal and all you thought about was how worldly it would make you look on your dating profile.
FINDING A MATCH, AND WHY YOU SHOULD MAKE THE FIRST MOVE
Now you’ve set up your profile and you’re ready to start finding your next digital squeeze. First, a note on how dating sites work. You might think that, when you use a dating service, you’re getting shown all the potential matches that meet your criteria, but this isn’t usually the case. Here’s the problem: if you let everyone pick and choose from everyone else, then you’ll end up with some people who are extremely popular and some who are very unpopular. At one end of the spectrum, the very popular people will be inundated with messages; at the other, the least popular people will be left with empty inboxes. For both, the service becomes unusable.
As a result, most dating services use data analysis to figure out how popular each user is, and then match them with users of a similar popularity. The more popular you are, the more popular people you’ll be matched with. Tinder allegedly calls this a person’s ‘Elo score’, named after a rating system used to rank the skill level of chess players.
On some dating services, you can start messaging people straight off the bat. On others, you have to both express an interest, or ‘match’, before you can message. In a straight context, there’s a huge imbalance between how men and women generally approach this. Men often play a numbers game, matching with as many women as possible, while women tend to be more picky, only matching with people they actually fancy. The irony is that, the more widespread these behaviours become, the more they reinforce the other: if men swipe right on everyone, women feel they have to be more selective so as to avoid being overwhelmed with matches. But if women only occasionally swipe right, men feel they have to be even more gung-ho with their swiping to increase their odds of getting a match.
There’s a similar gender imbalance when it comes to first messages. Generally speaking, straight women send very few first messages and straight men send a lot more. This no doubt harks back to old-fashioned gender stereotypes about who should make the first move, but it doesn’t do anyone any favours. Again, you end up with women swamped with messages and men frustrated at their lack of replies.
Dating app Bumble tries to address this problem by forcing women to message men first. But on all apps, it’s advantageous to make the first move. Dale Markowitz, a software engineer and former data scientist at OKCupid, explains that whoever messages first is more likely to get their preferences in a partner and make less of a compromise. That’s because the person who messages first essentially takes their pick of who they want to date. The person on the receiving end, meanwhile, may well respond to someone who meets most of their criteria but not all of them. ‘In a way, whoever sends the first message has an advantage, in that what they want is who they end up dating,’ she says. As men send so many more first messages (on OKCupid, men start around 80 per cent of conversations), they end up establishing the dating paradigm.
Take age, for example: there’s lots of evidence out there that men tend to prefer dating younger women. But do women prefer dating older men? While at OKCupid, Markowitz looked at thousands of heterosexual interactions to investigate this age gap. She found that in over half of successful conversations (‘successful conversations’ being counted as threads that lasted for at least four messages), the man was older than the woman. When she looked more closely at how people directed their messages, however, she found that men tended to message younger women but women tended to message men closer to their own age. And as women got older, they actually responded more often to younger men.3
This, concludes Markowitz, suggests that the age gap may be driven more by men’s preferences than women’s; if more women took the initiative to message their ideal dates, then perhaps the dynamic would shift. And when women do put themselves out there, they can flip the norms. Markowitz found that a 40-year-old woman was actually more likely to get a response from a 25-year-old than a 55-year-old man. Admittedly, this may be partly down to the novelty, given it is currently unusual for women to message first – but it’s a heartening reminder that you can’t get what you don’t ask for. So don’t be shy; go ahead and make the first move.
The first message
‘Hey’ won’t cut it. Neither will its more provocative cousin ‘Heyy’ (there’s something so salacious about that extra ‘y’, isn’t there?). Such a lazy message is unlikely to get you a response, and if it does, it’ll probably just be another ‘Hey’ back – which puts you right back at square one.
Pick-up lines are universally terrible, as are inane questions about whether you’d rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses, or whatever other nonsense. And yes, we’ve all heard the one about the Titanic – ‘it broke the ice.’ (Although, when you think about it, didn’t the ice break the Titanic?)
Putting together a decent first message isn’t rocket science. You can break it down into a simple formula:
Positive reference to thing on their profile + question = decent chance of success
For example:
‘Cute dog! How old is he?’
‘Great to meet another horror film fan. What’s the last one you watched?’
‘Nice Statue of Liberty picture. When were you in New York?’
By following this formula you’re doing two things: proving you’ve actually looked at their profile and aren’t just copy-pasting the same message to everyone, and making it as easy as possible for them to respond.
Be nice, but avoid empty compliments, especially on someone’s appearance – in a first message, this comes across as at best inauthentic and at worst just sleazy. Hit send, and then the ball’s in their court. If they don’t respond, you can follow up once, but that’s it. After that, take the hint and move on. As they say, there are plenty of fish in the sea – or, indeed, on Plenty of Fish.
Transitioning from online to IRL
Most people aren’t on dating apps to find a pen pal and, after a few successful messages, you probably want to float the idea of a meeting. There’s something to be said for the chemistry you feel (or don’t feel) when meeting in person that simply can’t be captured in messages, and you don’t want to invest too heavily in someone who turns out to have really bad body odour or terrible table manners, or who spends the whole date talking about how, seriously, their startup is so close to making it really big.
Take a few simple precautions before meeting your date. Google them beforehand and check out their social media to make sure there aren’t any obvious red flags. Choose a neutral location for your first meeting and let a friend know in advance where you’re going and when you expect to be back. It’s a good idea to set a fixed end time to the date when you first arrange it, so that you have an easy out should things get awkward or the chemistry just isn’t there.
DANGEROUS DATING BEASTS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
It’s a jungle out there. Here are some of the invasive species that have made online dating their habitat – and that are best kept at a distance.
The catfish
The catfish is quite literally too good to be true. Lurking in the shallows of any dating app, they pull you in with a tempting photo and winning bio. Message for any amount of time, however, and you’ll start to see inconsistencies in their story. They seem rather coy about sharing more photos and even more reluctant to talk on Skype or meet in person. A reverse-image search reveals their pictures are attached to a Facebook profile under someone else’s name or appear on a stock photo website. Eventually, you find out that Claudia the part-time model is actually Klaus, the bored teenager.
The Intellectual
The Intellectual is not just someone who’s a bit bookish, but someone who will tell you in complete earnestness that they consider themselves to be An Intellectual (and will expect you to be impressed). They find creative ways to drop their IQ score into casual conversation and will never use an everyday word when they can find a barely used synonym instead. You’re not just beautiful, darling, you’re positively pulchritudinous! Other giveaways include: any mention of quantum physics, listing their sexuality as ‘sapiosexual’ and a general scorn for popular culture (except for their favourite TV show, which is either The Big Bang Theory or Rick and Morty).
The married man
Or woman. But usually man. For the most part, the married man lists himself as single and targets younger women. Alternatively, he might put something like ‘it’s complicated’, or insist that he’s ‘poly’, or ‘in an open relationship’ (helpful reminder: cheating isn’t the same as polyamory, and it only counts as an open relationship if your partner agrees). In rare cases, the married man is upfront about his marital status – and then tries to sell you a sob story about the loveless life that only you can save him from. In reality, he probably has no interest in leaving his spouse and will most likely bottle it before he even gets as far as an affair. The attention is an ego-boost, but as soon as things get too real, poof! He’s ghosted.
The Nice Guy
A well-documented online phenomenon, the Nice Guy is anything but. Nice Guys believe that the reason they can’t get a girlfriend is no fault of their own; the problem is that women just can’t see what a great catch they are. A Nice Guy’s only foible, you see, is that he’s ‘too nice’, and ‘nice guys finish last’. Women say they want nice guys, the Nice Guy whines, but really they go for jerks. This leaves the Nice Guy firmly relegated to the mythical ‘friend zone’ – and why would a nice guy like him want to be your friend? The Nice Guy promises that he’s not like other guys; he’ll treat you right, m’lady. Unless it turns out that you’re not sexually attracted to him, in which case, he was just joking – as if he’d ever be interested in you, you fat slut!
The ‘not like other girls’ girl
Similar to the Nice Guy, the ‘not like other girls’ girl takes great pains to show off how different and quirky she is – not like all those other girls. She turns her nose up at anything stereotypically feminine and thinks she’s a special snowflake for liking video games, drinking beer or having tattoos. She wants you to know that she could totally just chill out with your guy friends – she’s cool like that. The problem with the ‘not like other girls’ girl is that her whole schtick relies on false and harmful stereotypes about what ‘other girls’ are like, when in reality they are of course all individuals with their own stuff going on. In that respect, the ‘not like other girls’ girl is, ironically, exactly like other girls.
The modern misogynist
If only the Nice Guy was as bad as it got. Unfortunately, the internet has become home to a frightening range of misogynistic communities that can be quite extreme in their hatred of women. These online groups are all slightly different in their ideologies but share the same basic belief that men and women are fundamentally different. Often homophobic and racist to boot, they are nostalgic for traditional gender roles and think that feminism has ‘gone too far’. They feel entitled to sex – but only with women they deem attractive enough, of course – and can get aggressive and even violent if denied. These tragic men might inspire pity, if it weren’t for the fact they’re so utterly vile.
TELLTALE SIGNS TO HELP YOU SPOT – AND AVOID – THE MODERN MISOGYNIST:
- ● Refers to macho men as ‘alphas’ and others as ‘betas’
- ● Has The Game by Neil Strauss on his bookshelf
- ● Takes an inordinate amount of pride in going to the gym
- ● Tries to ‘neg’ you – a kind of backhanded compliment aimed at undermining a person’s confidence to make them more vulnerable (‘You’d be pretty if you had better teeth,’ ‘Nice hair, is it fake?’)
- ● Takes great interest in evolutionary biology and refers to human relationships in weirdly biological terms, like calling sex ‘mating’
- ● Calls women ‘females’
- ● Is adamant that misandry is a thing
- ● Worships Jordan Peterson
- ● Has no platonic female friends
- ● Calls men who do have female friends ‘white knights’ or ‘social justice warriors’
- ● Describes sexual experiences in such great detail it’s almost as if he made them up …
- ● Gaslights you when you try to question any of the above
THE NEW RULES OF FLIRTING
Regardless of whether you meet someone online or the old-fashioned way, relationships today are conducted at least partly through digital lines of communication. Where we once agonised over the punctuation in a handwritten love letter, so we now sigh over the little electronic ticks that tell us a love interest has seen our latest message but not yet deemed it worthy of a response.
I had a girl friend at school who, when it came to flirting with boys, used to insist on following ‘The Rules’ – a kind of dating code based on the 1995 book of the same name by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. These ‘Rules’ (which, as you can probably guess, were rather outdated and very sexist) essentially revolved around making yourself appear mysterious and elusive, of ‘playing hard to get’. This friend used to make guys wait two days – days! – before texting them back.
Today, if a love interest kept me waiting more than a few hours for a reply, I’d probably assume they were either no longer interested, ghosting me or lying dead in a ditch.
Playing games is not usually consistent with good etiquette, leading as it does only to frustration on all sides. If you want to text someone back, text them back. Leaving them waiting is just rude and shows a disregard for their time (see also Chapter 3: ‘Left on Read’).
That said, you don’t want to overdo your affections to the point that you become a nag. When it comes to romantic messaging, more important than timing or frequency is reciprocity. Are they texting back as much as you are? Are they responding with the same level of intimacy, or have their messages devolved into the occasional ‘hmm’ and ‘haha’? It takes two to flirt. Next, we shall delve into some of the dating behaviours specific to digital platforms.
SIGNS THEY’RE PROBABLY
INTO YOU
They like all your social media posts
They particularly like your selfies
They respond to your messages instantly
They laugh (or LOL) at your jokes
They send you cute animal memes or gifs
They text first thing in the morning/last thing at night
They never break your Snapchat streak
They watch all your Instagram Stories
They use the winky face emoji when they message you
Breadcrumbing
Breadcrumbing is a phenomenon whereby a person sends you just enough messages to keep your attention while having no real intention of moving forward with a relationship. The breadcrumber has a sixth sense for when you’re about to lose interest and hooks you back with a flirtatious message, hinting that things could go further – before disappearing again. What they’re after is attention; they like the ego-boost of feeling that they could have something with you, even though they’re not actually into it. They’re wasting your time.
Sliding into DMs
The DM slide is a classic move. Sliding into DMs describes when you transition from public social media interactions to a private chat, with flirtatious intentions. Or, as the top definition on Urban Dictionary puts it, ‘When you start a direct message chain on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, with the hopes of acquiring the booty.’ One minute you’re liking and commenting on someone’s public posts, the next you’re sending them a direct message. It’s called ‘sliding’ because the instigator usually hopes to pull off this segue seamlessly and come out of it looking incredibly smooth. In reality, this is rarely the case.
Sliding into DMs has earned the reputation of being a bit of a sleazy move, largely due to the speed with which many DM-sliders manage to jump from hello to harassment. That said, it is possible to pull it off without being a total creep. The key, as ever, is context. A good DM slide should not happen out of the blue; you need to work up to it. ‘Just as it would be very invasive in real life for someone to come up to you and start talking to you non-stop, you have to pick up on social cues and pick up on their interest,’ says Taylor Lorenz, a journalist who writes about internet culture for the Atlantic.
Imagine it like this: you’re chatting to a group of people in real life, in a public place. You catch someone’s eye, and perhaps join in a conversation in shared company. Later, you find an opportunity to talk to them one-on-one, in the hope of making a move. This is the real-world equivalent of the DM slide and, like its digital cousin, it can either be the start of a beautiful relationship or a thoroughly mortifying experience that you’d rather never think about again.
The best way to lay the groundwork for romance over social media is to start by liking some of your crush’s posts. Keep an eye out for a response – are they liking your posts in return? If so, try advancing to a comment here and there before building up to the direct message.
If you’re a man sliding into a woman’s DMs, remember that her experience of the internet is likely to be very different to yours, and she may (justifiably) be suspicious of your intentions. Lorenz says that she has had so many problems with men sending her unwanted messages on Twitter that she now just tells everyone she doesn’t do DMs. Her advice: ‘I would tell women to put themselves out there a little bit more in terms of engaging with new people online and initiating messages, and I would tell men to cool it and triple-guess everything you do, because you’re probably being annoying to someone.’
Tindstagramming
Tindstagramming is the creepier cousin of the DM slide. This is when someone swipes right on your profile on Tinder but you swipe left, meaning you don’t ‘match’ and they can’t message you. But instead of taking the rejection on the chin like a grown-up, they track you down on Instagram and message you there instead.
Tindstagramming is always unacceptable. If someone hasn’t replied to your advances on a dating app, you can take that as a resounding ‘no’. Don’t make them turn you down twice.
Deep-liking
‘Deep-liking’ can happen to the best of us, but that doesn’t stop it being excruciating every time. This is when you’re casually lurking on your date’s social media profiles, trawling through all their photos – and then accidentally hit ‘like’ on a picture of them from six years ago, thus revealing yourself to be the creepy stalker we all are when it comes to our online crushes. Mortifying.
It’s hard to come back from a deep-like. Your best bet is to immediately unlike and hope against hope that they didn’t notice. If they did, then – well, I suppose you could always leave social media, vow to remain single for ever, and go and live the rest of your life off-grid in a forest somewhere?
If you’re on the receiving end of a deep-like, take it as a compliment, and bask in the relief that it happened to them, not you.
Sexting
You’ve done your flirting, your partner’s into it, and now you’re ready to turn up the heat. Sexting – sending sexually explicit messages, photos or videos – is an increasingly popular pastime. A 2016 study led by Justin Garcia at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, found that 21 per cent of single Americans surveyed had sent sexually explicit messages, with younger respondents more likely to have done so.4
As with any sexual activity, at the heart of sexting etiquette is consent. You should have no doubt before you send someone an explicit message that they actually want to receive it. If you’re not sure, ask. It might feel mildly embarrassing, but much less so than dealing with the consequences of sending an unwanted sext. Just spit it out: ‘Can I send you some sexy messages?’ Add a winky face emoji if you must.
Once you’ve got (enthusiastic) consent, the real challenge starts: being sexy over the internet. We’ll start with sexting by text, the natural continuation of old-school phone sex. This can include anything from risqué compliments to transcribed role-play (‘Ooh, I’m taking off my bra …’ ‘I’m caressing your inner thigh …’)
Writing sex is notoriously difficult. Some of literature’s greatest minds (as well as former Smiths frontman Morrissey) have found themselves lampooned at the Literary Review’s annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award for sex scenes that are anything but arousing. Their problem is usually trying to be too creative – think ‘bulbous salutations’ and barrel-rolling breasts (and those are just Morrissey). Luckily, you’re not trying to win any literary prizes with your sexts. Embrace the clichés, find what works for you both, and don’t even think about reaching for the thesaurus. If you’re not sure where to start, try referencing your last meeting or describing what you want to do when you next see each other.
Different strokes for different folks, but it’s often the case that less is more. ‘In general, people miss a step in thinking that sexting is about the actual sex,’ says Lea Robinson, a writer who has published more than 100 erotic novels together with co-author Melissa King under the pseudonym Alexa Riley. The secret to hot dirty talk, she says, is in the promise of what’s to come. King agrees: ‘It’s not the actual sex, it’s everything that builds up to it.’
Sexy emoji
If you’re struggling to use your words, just say it in emoji. There are no emoji specifically designed for sex (except perhaps the ‘love hotel’), but, being the immature humans that we are, we have developed a whole set of double-entendres for the most innocent of icons. To get those with the highest potential for embarrassing misunderstandings out of the way first: the aubergine emoji is pretty much only ever used in modern messaging to represent a penis, and the peach is almost never the fruit and almost always a nice ripe derrière.
EMOJI SEXTING TRANSLATION GUIDE
From the mildly suggestive to the full-on full-frontal, here are some popular emoji euphemisms:
Winking face – flirtatious wink
Smirking face – ‘Let’s get it on’
Aubergine – penis
Peach – bum
Water droplets – bodily fluids of any description
Pointing fingers – touching
Waving hand – spanking
Closed fist – hand job
Tongue or face with tongue sticking out – oral
Champagne bottle/fireworks/confetti/rocket/explosion – climax
Blushing face – post-coital glow
Other emoji can also take on lewd meanings depending on context, such as the disembodied tongue or the water droplets – which are technically meant to be sweat but could conceivably convey other bodily fluids. You can even link emoji together in sequences to represent complete sex acts, as in the rather X-rated expression of self-love, closed fist – aubergine – water droplets.
Interestingly, there is no universally accepted emoji for the vulva or vagina, and though you could attempt to convey this creatively – perhaps with the cat emoji; the taco; or the tulip, Georgia O’Keeffe style – it’s unlikely people would immediately understand what you meant, and very likely to be 50 shades of awkward.
Sending nudes
When people talk about sexting these days, they’re often not referring to texted sweet nothings but to explicit photos. The phrase ‘send nudes’ has become a common internet meme, and can be used both as an earnest request and a punchline to jokes.
As ever, the most important thing to consider when exchanging nudes is consent. Sending someone nudes with consent can be hot, charming and part of an ordinary, healthy relationship. Sending the same pictures without consent is really no better than flashing someone in the street – gross, pervy and potentially illegal. Take note, unsolicited dick pic senders: no one wants to see your privates unless they explicitly tell you they want to. Just because a woman is so presumptuous as to be active on the internet does not mean she is fair game for your icky photos.
If you do have consent, ask yourself one other important question: do you trust the person you’re sharing images with to respect your privacy? You need to be aware that any images you put online could end up travelling further than you expect. Sending nudes has become particularly popular on ‘ephemeral’ apps like Snapchat, where messages disappear after being read, but even here, the recipient can screenshot or otherwise make a copy without your knowledge.
Ann Olivarius, a lawyer who specialises in fighting for women’s rights, warns about ‘revenge porn’ – a term that describes when someone (often a vengeful ex) shares explicit images without your permission, for example posting them on social media or messaging them to other people. ‘Usually when people are about to do this, they don’t stop and think, “What if he takes these pictures and puts them on the internet when we break up?”’ she says.
You can’t stop someone from being a future jerk, but you can take a few mitigating precautions, such as keeping your face out of shot so you can’t be easily identified if the picture falls into malicious hands. Before you send a picture to someone, it’s a good idea to also clarify that it’s intended for their eyes only, to make sure you’re on the same page. As a recipient, you should treat other people’s nudes with the utmost of confidence. If you break up, delete them.
MAKING THINGS OFFICIAL
In the olden days (the early noughties), you knew a relationship was the real deal when it became Facebook official. Forget meeting their parents or opening a joint bank account; if you weren’t marked ‘in a relationship with’ someone on your Facebook profile, then you couldn’t be truly serious about it.
Nowadays, listing your relationship on Facebook seems rather passé, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore your significant other on social media. Atlantic writer Taylor Lorenz believes that engaging with a loved one’s online content – whether that’s on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or anywhere else – is an essential part of modern relationships. ‘I think that online relationships should mimic your real-life relationship as closely as possible,’ she says. ‘If you’re spending a lot of time with your significant other in real life and they’re nowhere on your social media, that’s a bit weird.’
Lorenz has written about the trend of ‘going Instagram official’ on her Medium site.5 Going Instagram official essentially means coming out with your relationship on the platform, usually by posting a picture of you both looking cute together with a corny caption or some heart emojis. Related behaviour includes ‘twinstagramming’ (posting pictures from the same place at the same time) and ‘subgramming’ (posting pictures or captions that seem innocuous to an outsider but have a special meaning for their intended viewer). ‘Instagram official is basically how everybody declares their relationship now,’ Lorenz says.
MODERN LOVE IS …
… liking every post
… never leaving them on read
… having ‘our’ emoji
… going social media official
… texting them even though your battery’s at 5%
… taking 100 photos to get their best Instagram shot
… trusting them with your Netflix password
… saving their address on Deliveroo because you’re there so often
Marriage in the age of social media
Call me old-fashioned, but certain major relationship milestones should remain analogue. Proposals should be made in person, wedding invitations should be sent on paper, and most stag and hen party photos are really best left off the internet. That’s not to say that social media has no place in romantic events. Used correctly, it can be a great way to share these special moments with family and friends.
Let’s start with proposals. These should be kept intimate. Personally, I can’t think of anything worse than a choreographed dance flash mob, or anything else that might have the chance of ‘going viral’. If you want to film the moment for posterity, keep it low-key; you don’t want your partner to feel even more on-the-spot than they already are.
Proposal over and accepted, it’s perfectly acceptable to announce the engagement on social media, should you so wish. Judging by the activity of my Facebook friends, there is one way and one way only in which you may do this: a photo of the bride-to-be’s hand wrapped around a champagne glass, with their ring finger on prominent display and the caption ‘She said yes!’
Tell your close family and friends before posting; they deserve the personal touch. Never post about someone else’s engagement on social media without their approval, as they may not yet have had the chance to share the news.
When it comes to the wedding, the main point of contention is usually photos. Some couples encourage guests to take pictures for social media and tag them with a cheesy hashtag, while others ask for an ‘unplugged’ wedding and for photography to be left to the professionals. Others request that guests refrain from taking pictures during the ceremony itself or ask that they are not posted online until later.
As a guest, you should respect the couple’s wishes. If in doubt, assume that no photos are to be posted until after the ceremony has concluded and the party is in full swing. Absolutely do not post any pictures of the bride getting ready before the ceremony unless you have her permission; you don’t want to ruin her big reveal.
If you’re part of the happy couple, you’ll no doubt want to share your wedding photos with the world. The etiquette here boils down to one thing: don’t be insufferable. Remember that, while it may have been the happiest day of your life, to many of your social media connections it’s just one more wedding appearing in their feed. Making too much of a fuss can appear obnoxious, especially to single friends.
Pick the best photos and upload them together; don’t drip-feed them out in an extended trawl for likes. You may permit yourself one or two #throwback posts in the year directly following the wedding, but after that you should hold off for anniversaries.
BREAKING UP
The one thing more difficult than starting a relationship is ending one, and digital reminders can make it tough to move on from a past love. It’s easy to fall into the trap of stalking your ex’s social media feeds to see what they’re up to (and with whom), but in all likelihood this will only make you feel more miserable. If you know you have a tendency to wallow, it’s best to just unfollow and unfriend an ex, at least until the wound has healed somewhat.
Ghosting
Ghosting refers to the heart-wrenching moment when someone ends a relationship by simply stopping responding to messages. One minute you’re chatting away, the next – poof! – they’ve disappeared without a digital trace.
Ghosting isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, but modern technology has made it more widespread. If your relationship is conducted heavily through messaging and social media, it’s a lot easier to drop off the map. Relationship counsellor Peter Saddington says one reason ghosting may have become more common is because relationships developed over digital platforms can get very close very fast. ‘When couples start their relationship and spend a lot of time texting each other, the level of intimacy they achieve is quicker than, say, meeting face to face,’ he explains. ‘As a consequence, I think people can be tempted into forming relationships – getting very intense, very deep – and then starting to get cold feet when somebody says something or does something to put them off.’
Ghosting usually comes from a place of shame and embarrassment: it’s the easy way out when you don’t have the guts to tell someone you’re just not into them any more. But for the ghosted, it can be devastating. ‘Somehow it feels incredibly disrespectful and hurtful – as if you’re not taken into account as a true human being,’ Saddington says.
There are some truly awful examples out there. In an article for Mashable, journalist Rachel Thompson recalled a time she met someone on dating app Hinge and got as far as ordering a drink at the restaurant they’d agreed to meet at before being ghosted. She noticed that her WhatsApp messages asking her date where he was had not gone through – they only had one tick next to them instead of two, indicating that he had blocked her number. When she checked the Hinge app, he was no longer in her matches. After speaking to other people who had been similarly stood up, she came up with the term ‘cloaking’ to describe this particularly heinous type of last-minute ghosting – ‘given that these people essentially don an invisibility cloak after setting up a date’.6
Her experience was at least possibly better than one poor soul on Twitter, however, who tweeted that she’d been seeing someone for around three months before he ghosted her, only for him to later match with her again on Tinder. He sent a message with five words: ‘You should get yourself tested.’ He didn’t respond to follow-up messages.7
It’s perfectly reasonable to want to end a relationship, but you need to actually end it – don’t just leave things hanging. If you’ve been seeing someone for a while, you should buck up and tell them to their face. If it’s a more casual arrangement, it’s fine to do it over messaging, but make your intentions clear.
Instead of ghosting, journalist, broadcaster and sex educator Alix Fox suggests that you should ‘casper’. Named after the friendly ghost, caspering involves sending one last message to explain that you don’t want to continue the relationship, and then ghosting. ‘Try and leave them something constructive,’ Fox advises. ‘Give them the dignity and closure of a final statement saying that you are cutting them off, so you don’t leave them hanging, wondering what they did wrong.’
She suggests something along the lines of: ‘Hey, I don’t think we’re a good match, so I’m going to move on. It’s been really nice when you’ve thoughtfully asked me how my days have been, so thank you. Good luck for the future.’
That way, you get your clean break, but they get to move on as well, without wondering if you’ve been hit by a bus.
There are, of course, exceptions. ‘If someone has been wildly inappropriate or a complete asshole, then by all means ghost them,’ she says. ‘In that case, it’s a righteous ghosting.’
DIGITAL CURES FOR HEARTBREAK
- ● Head to your friends’ WhatsApp group to commiserate about how you deserve better and they were never good enough for you anyway.
- ● Treat yourself to a ‘Netflix and chill’ night where you actually just watch Netflix and chill.
- ● Go through the ritual of unfollowing and unfriending them on all social media platforms. For that extra feeling of smugness, block them too.
- ● Call your mum.
- ● Make a new Spotify playlist of your favourite upbeat songs.
- ● Browse Reddit’s r/aww forum for an endless stream of cute animal pics; make one your phone wallpaper.
- ● Create an online dating profile and enjoy the ego boost when people match with you, even if you’re not quite ready to move on just yet.
- ● Ask a friend to do an Instagram shoot of you looking cute and update your profile picture.
- ● Like and leave positive comments on mutual friends’ social media posts to show how totally fine you’re doing.