Source: skynesher / Getty
I feel for men in the online dating sphere. Kind of. Generally speaking, I think women are just better with written communication than men are. Not only are we better at it, but we’re also very specific about how we want people to talk to us online. If you’re a woman reading this, then you know how much a simple ellipsis, emoji, or length of text can change the way you interpret a message. Women know how women want to be spoken to online. Men? They kind of don’t. And now, more than ever, with a pandemic happening, most first impressions are being made online. People aren’t flirting and exchanging numbers in their masks at the grocery store (though a guy did ask me out when I had my mask on and it made me laugh). Some perfectly good guys are overlooked because they’re bad at online messaging. Admittedly, there are also some dudes who are just creepy, know exactly what they’re doing when they send those eggplant emojis, and should be blocked. But then there are the guys who are trying their best, and for whom it’s just hard out there. They don’t know how they come off. They don’t know that these DMs often come off the wrong way.
So you’re a writer? I write a bit.
Men, when you see that a woman does something for a living, do not tell her that you dabble in it, and then proceed to show her those dabblings. Do you know how condescending that is? If she is, for example, a published writer who has written for ten years and is in big magazines, and you say, “Oh yeah I write too” and send her your blog, it feels like you’re saying you and her are the same. You are not.
