How To Use Social Media Like A Gentleman

Maybe she posted a nice photo. Maybe she posted a sexy photo. Maybe she wrote a particularly compelling Facebook post, or tweeted something that piqued your interest, like a screenshot of a lesser-known indie movie that you loved as a teen. Maybe she didn't even post anything at all. Nevertheless, you feel compelled to interact with her online.

Most guys, unfortunately, don't know how to do this properly, and so: They bung it up. Luckily, I'm here to give you a step-by-step guide to social media-ing at women properly. These are lessons learned through years of being online, interacting with women, and learning from my mistakes:

1. Consider Whether This Woman Has Ever Interacted With You Before

Past interaction isn't a perfect proxy for desire to engage in future interaction (an important note for men to remember about women in a lot of different ways!) but it can be a good start when it comes to knowing whether a woman will actually appreciate your notification.

Do you know her in real life? Do you have any friends in common? Or at least, Twitter mutuals in common? Are you Twitter mutuals? Do you have common interests or knowledge bases? Are you in the same industry? Does your online presence communicate that you’re not a serial killer?

Regardless of medium, the more times you've tried to get her attention without getting a response, the more annoying you're being. (Consider why you, for instance, would ignore someone clearly trying to get your attention! Usually it’s because: You don’t want to interact with them.)

It’s like someone trying to get you to donate to a charity when you’re on your way to catch the subway. You don’t hurry by because you secretly do want to talk to them. You hurry by because you know why they want to talk to you -- and you’re not interested in having that conversation.

Lots of guys keep reaching out to women who don't respond to them. This is a bad move and will only make everyone's lives worse. Part of being an online gentleman is coming to recognize that sometimes, you are the charity-clipboard person that people don’t want to stop and have a friendly chat with. It’s not a great feeling, but it’s true, and the sooner you come to terms with it, the happier everyone will be.

So: If, within the first two or three interactions you have with her she doesn’t respond in any way (no reply, no like/fave, etc.) then she’s almost certainly not going to if you keep it up.

Do the honorable thing: Either fall back to a pose of mute, stoic dignity -- quietly liking her good content as you see fit (except if you’re thinking, like, “OK, I see fit to go heart her 50 most recent IG pics at 3 a.m.) -- or just put everyone out of their misery and mute and/or unfollow and/or unfriend her, to protect you both from you own worst instincts.

2. Consider How Often This Woman Deals With This

Because of the specific economics of cross-gender interaction (women get bombarded with cis male commentary, men get almost no female input) even completely non-famous women can end up dealing with a lot of unwanted male attention. In short, 99 times out of 100, you’re not the only guy in her inbox.

But anyone who's used to frequent demands on their time works out a framework where they simply ignore the bulk of the people making demands so they can actually respond to any of them. You would do the same!

Consider, for instance, how much effort you put into responding to emails. Do you open spam emails? Do you carefully study mailing list emails? Or do you save your time and energy for emails that actually matter?

People figure out, based on sender and subject line, which emails are the absolute most important ones and spend one second or less thinking about all the other ones. This is a normal human process.

As people, women are no different, except that they've been socialized to be polite to men who don't deserve their politeness, so sometimes they'll be polite to you when you don’t deserve it. Don’t be the spam in this woman’s inbox! That’s no way to live.

3. Consider Whether You Find This Woman Attractive

Think carefully: Were you imagining that your interaction might be an avenue for her falling in love with you? Or at least, in lust with you? If that’s the case, let's play a little game: Imagine the person in question was, rather than a human woman (who is probably young and attractive, just hazarding a guess), a sentient potted fern.

Or, what if she was, say, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Or: an ugly, less friendly version of The Rock, like some guy in a biker gang. Or your own mother, God rest her soul, in full biker regalia.

Are you still sending the message as-is? Are those entities ones you want the same reply-attention from? Truth is, a lot of male-to-female replies happen because the men sending them are attracted to the women in question, and they want to get a reply from said attractive person. That's not to say that immediately invalidates the content of what you have to say, but it does raise questions.

If you can recognize that you're only trying to get her attention because you’re e-smitten, do the right thing and hand the keys to your Twitter to a more sensible person. If you really want to find dates using only your phone, download Tinder instead.

4. Consider Whether You Are Coming Off As Rude

This is tricky, of course, because the people most likely to come off rude are often the ones least sensitive to the possibility that they might be! But the truth is that any and all of us can easily be rude. Rudeness is like gravity -- it’s everywhere, it’s naturally occurring and unless you fight really hard against it, it could dominate everything you do.

But take a measure of consolation in the fact that we, as humans, figured out air travel and space flight. We worked hard at it and we figured out how to beat gravity at its own game. You can beat rudeness! You can be polite!

Social media often feels like a place where you just instantaneously publish every other thought that comes into your head, but for a bit, try not doing that!

I recently saw a guy I know to be a very deeply committed Twitter Feminist™ tweet at a woman who was complaining about male behavior. His tweet was clearly angry, but it was phrased in a weird way. The woman asked me, “Is this guy yelling at me? I was sure he wasn’t -- whatever his IRL politics or secret thoughts, his type was to be an unfailing ally on the timeline.

But he was being rude, because he hadn’t taken enough time to think his tweet through, and what came across first and foremost was the anger, to the point where a woman was worrying about it.

If you’re messaging a woman you don’t know well, you need to make it clear that you’re not being a creep or angry asshole, because tons of guys already are. Work to distinguish yourself.

5. Finally, Consider… Don’t.

Don't.

6. Yep, I Said "Don't."

That's a contraction. Short for "Do not," a sentence formed from the words "do" (a multi-purpose verb suggesting the presence of an action) and "not" (a negation). In this case, the negation inverses the meaning of the verb, suggesting an absence of an action.

7. For Real: Consider Not Doing It

I'm not being facetious. (OK I am, a little. Spreading this tip out into three different tips was facetious.) But the advice therein is 100% serious.

Heterosexual male DMs, tweets, replies and the like toward women (or non-binary people, or trans people) are usually a lot worse than the guy thinks they are.

Many men tend to roll up to an online interaction with a woman like your relative who gives the worst gifts while thinking they give the best gifts rolls up to a family party.

"Everyone will love this thing I have to say," thinks the online male, holding a used Snuggie wrapped in a garbage bag, "especially the woman I am saying it at." Pro tip: Unless she knows you and likes you, she will probably not, and no one else will, either. At best, it may be be tolerated.

Social media posts, comments and the like are ephemeral digital nonsense that the world would be better off without in almost every case. If your response to this woman is not spectacularly nice, useful, funny, interesting or thoughtful, consider: Maybe don't send it! Would anything of importance really be lost in the process? And the answer is, almost in every case, no.

Practice, just for a bit, not liking every pic she posts. Or: Did she make a typo? Who cares, those happen! Don’t DM her about it. Did she appear to conflate two different concepts? People do that all the time! It’s not a crime and it’s no reason to start a flame war. Did she express an opinion you disagree with? What are you, the freakin’ Pope?

Look, settle down, bud. The only person who needs this interaction to exist is you. And you only think you need it because something inside you is broken. It’s OK! I get it. We all have broken parts, me included. But what you need is therapy, not an overactive social media presence.

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