It’s really quite simple: back in the old days, there was no way to get to know the ins and outs of a person without actually talking to them. You would meet somebody face to face, feel them out through conversation, and truly get to know who they are the more you hangout with them. Then, you could create your own opinion of them based on how they are towards you and whether you connect or not. When they would tell you their favorite sports team or what they do for a living, it would be interesting and fresh because you didn’t already know from stalking their Facebook page. When they introduce you to their best friend, you wouldn’t be thinking to yourself “Oh yeah, I recognize him from all your Instagram pictures.” And when he finaaaally gets around to talking about his ex girlfriend, you wouldn’t be manically scrolling through his twitter to see if they still follow each other. Life was a lot simpler back then because there wasn’t much to be paranoid about. Now? There’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LuLu, and Tinder to worry about. Allow me to explain what these apps do to the female brain:
1. Twitter:
It all starts with a follow. He follows you, you follow him back (or vice versa, whatever). Then, you start going through his tweets. You think you can kind of get a feel for whom this person is. Maybe he tweets about sports a lot, has a few pictures of his dog, and the ever so cliché tweet about how he can’t wait until the weekend hits so he can “crush some beers with the boys.” Okay, he might be a bro, but so far so good. Then, curiosity gets the best of you and you start looking at whose tweets he’s favoriting: all girls. “Hmmmm,” you say to yourself, “why is this guy who asked for my number at the bar the other night favoriting all of these girls tweets? Is he a player?” And in comes the skepticism. You start going through EVERYTHING. You even start to look through the profiles of the girls he’s tweeting at. At this point, you’re wondering which of these girls he’s already hooked up with, is thinking about hooking up with, or both. BUT THEN, the worst has occurred. You run into his ex’s twitter. She tweeted something 2 days ago saying “missing bae…” and all hell breaks loose. “Is she talking about him? When did they break up? Are they still talking? Am I a potential side chick?” Next thing you know you’re all over his Direct Messages searching for some shit that probably isn’t even happening. In reality, she could be talking about anyone but, you know, us girls must assume the worst. And the wheels start spinning…
2. Facebook:
First things first, profile pictures. You start scrolling through to see who he’s friends with and who makes the cut for the ever so worthy default. What if he has a profile picture with a girl you don’t really like? Immediate turn off. Say he has some pictures at an EDM concert and can’t stand EDM. You might write this guy off because you think you know the type of guy he is, when in reality you could share a million other things in common. You can creep on his cover photos, who is writing on his wall, what his favorite bands are, etc. What if he makes way too many status’? Ew, next. Now, say you’ve been dating this guy for a while and you’re over his place. He leaves his Facebook up on his laptop while he’s in the bathroom and you take it upon yourself to do some snooping. Before you even get into his inbox, you can see the side of his chat list. You notice all of these girls who are appearing to be online. Seems pretty harmless, but in reality only people who you often message or visit their page show up at the top of your chat list. Before you have time to go in his inbox to get down to the nitty gritty, he’s back from the bathroom and you have to act like your heart isn’t in the pit of your stomach. Do you bring it up and let him know you were even creeping behind his back in the first place? Or do you sit in paranoia and endlessly try to forget about it. Maybe you shouldn’t have looked in the first place and now you got yourself in a huge pickle. Curiosity killed the cat, you know.
3. Snapchat:
Two words: top friends. Holy sh*t. I mean it when I say us girls do not take this lightly. This is a TELL. TALE. SIGN. of some shady activity occurring. If I’m talking to you, and some girl with the username “Katiebabyxo” is your top friend, your life is basically over. In my head, you’re already cheating on me (or at least thinking about it) and you’ll most likely get a call from me threatening to chop off your you-know-what immediately if not sooner. Not only are you communicating with this person, but you’re communicating through PICTURES. What are the pictures of? How come you’ve sent so many back and forth that she gets the top spot? WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The questions are endless, but the answer is simple. If you’ve got a girl, stop snapchatting other pretty girls or you’re going to get a rip-roaring ass whooping accompanied with some most likely empty threats of a break up. Pointless fighting is never fun.
4. Instagram:
Some ever so classic problems Instagram causes: “Why is that chick favoriting your shit? Who’s that girl that just followed you? Do you know her? How do you know her? When did you meet? Are you into her? Have you ever cheated on me with her? Do you wanna just break up now and you guys can go off and elope?!” This was all bad enough. But then, Instagram just had to dig deeper and make Direct messaging a thing. The agony and pain so many guys cause themselves by just not being able to stay away from this feature is comical. If you’re sending someone a specific picture that you can’t post in public, and it isn’t to your girl, it just screams sketchball. Just don’t.
5. LuLu:
I exceedingly hate LuLu more everyday and I don’t even have the app anymore. Girls rate guys on a site that they can’t even get on, how unfair is that? The fact of the matter is that most of the ratings on LuLu are from bitter ex girlfriends or past hook ups that didn’t work out. Of course these girls are going to say the absolute worst about this person, when in reality he’s probably the sweetest guy. Maybe he is cheap, maybe he is inconsiderate, and maybe he does have a wandering eye, but why not figure it out for yourself instead of listening to these biddies who are just trying to ruin his future with other girls.
6. Tinder
I’ll keep this one short. If you’re talking to a guy, and he still has Tinder on his phone, ummm…run. Run fast.
Ironically, the catch-22 to all this is that a guy with no social media at all abso-freaking-lutely has something to hide, and in girls heads, that’s basically a fact. If you don’t have at least 2 or more of the above social media sites, you might be a serial killer or a sociopath at BEST. Men cannot be trusted, but men without social media? Faaahget about it.
Call this article how you see it: crazy, pitiful, petty, etc. but the only thing this article should be labeled as is real. Sure, most parts were exaggerated just to give the full affect, but TRUST me when I say that most girls reading this will shamelessly nod their heads in truth over and over again. We all creep and we all jump to conclusions that are absolutely absurd. It’s just the generation we live in. Maybe we should try it like they did in the olden days and not find things out about people until they tell us. After all, isn’t dating more exciting that way? Next time you become interested in someone, try it. Peace of mind has been replaced with paranoia and all too often it ruins what could have been a great relationship. Ignorance is bliss, friends!