A recent study has found that emails are actually a far more effective tool in wooing the person you want to have a romantic relationship with, than a phone call or conversation. The study has pretty much turned on its head the notion we’ve long had — that nothing beats the personal touch, and that the typed word is far too impersonal to work. But think about it. In the Connected Age, we have so many more avenues on which to pursue Mr/Ms Right: There’s face-time of course, but then there’s also email, messaging services, and the whole gamut of social media. Your effective use of all these media could just be what makes the aforementioned Mr or Miss Right think of you as someone they might want to date. But along with varied avenues come varied rules — and you might want to acquaint yourself with the dos and don’ts before you work on building that textual attraction.
Don’t stalk — in an obvious way, that is!
Come on, admit it! We’ve all scoured the Facebook/Twitter/Instagram, even LinkedIn feeds of that hottie we were just introduced to. Is she/he in a relationship with someone, how many mutual friends do you have, what are his/her interests — really, your online ‘stalking’ is pretty much the equivalent of pumping every single person who’s close to your hottie for all the relevant information about her/him. But when does this stalking become creepy? Your obsessively checking his/her posts for messages from exes or potential dates, where he/she is going to be at a particular time etc — not cool at all.
Also, say even if your online checking has been within what the consensus would hold as being within “acceptable limits”, you DO NOT want your prospective date to find out that you’ve been going through their social media profiles. For instance, on Instagram, if you like the oldest photos a person has put up, it’s pretty obvious that you spent some focused time going through their feed. Don’t like more than four photos at a time, and keep comments on the photos short and sweet. Similarly, in your messages, don’t bring up something he/she may have said on a really, really old Facebook post/tweet.
Use messaging wisely
A message or an email is a great way to let a person know what a lovely time you had on your date the previous evening. But it is not the best way to ask a person out on what will be your first date. Message after a (hopefully) successful date, and you come across as thoughtful, considerate, charming. Message to ask them if they want to go out with you before you’ve even established some kind of rapport or dating history, and you come across as flippant — and overconfident.
You also need to look into what your messaging behaviour is saying – are you coming across as too needy, sending message after message when there is barely a reply or two from her/him? Or is it very obvious that you’re playing hard to get —when his/her messages have so clearly been “seen” by you, but you haven’t bothered to reply? “Appearances” on social media/messages are just as important as in the real world.
Also, the surveys around this subject suggest that men and women “read” messages differently. Generally, men are more visual, so they like messages that have emoticons (used with some restraint of course!), selfies and so on, rather than just a chunk of text. Most women, on the other hand, seem to prefer messages that don’t have too many abbreviated words, and very few emoticons. They seem to have a greater preference for longer messages vis-a-vis men. So tailor your messages accordingly!
Monitor the risqué stuff
The digital world has made scary situations like “revenge porn” an all-too-common reality. You may think that nude pic you’ve sent your date of a few months over Snapchat is safe. It isn’t. Your former/current partner using your images against you may seem like an extreme case, but what about it accidentally falling into the hands of the wrong person? Leave aside pictures, even steamy messages are best reserved for when you’re together, to be delivered verbally. Putting up super-mushy messages on her/his Facebook wall? That’s an absolute no — their 200 Facebook “friends” really don’t need to know how he/she rocked your world the night before.
Unlike what you say, what you write has an existence that may continue long after your relationship with a person ends. You want to be careful about leaving behind a trail of potentially embarrassing material. A simple rule of thumb in such cases would be to ask yourself, ‘Would you be okay with other people knowing this about you?’ If the answer is no, then don’t hit send on that risqué message. Flirtatious, suggestive, naughty messages – yes; hardcore, detailed play-by-play relays of what you want to do to your date when alone – avoidable.
Don’t miss out on the real stuff
A lot of people who’re a bit shy and reserved in person find it a lot easier to build a relationship with someone over emails, messages and chats. But you have to ensure that your relationship/attraction doesn’t just remain virtual. Do make it a point to set up a real date especially if most of your interactions have been digital so far.
And while a lot of people are more uninhibited online than they are offline, you don’t want to create a false persona — you have to be yourself (maybe a slightly improved version of you) – or it’s going to make for a very awkward real world meeting with your date. A Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde transformation may be interesting to read about — but not too many people want to encounter it in their dates.
