Saturday 17 December 2011

An open letter to online Romeos

Flattery and flirting is an art that can win a woman's heart but can also antagonise her for life if not done properly. 

The important thing is how you paint the art. Unfortunately most of the men fail miserably in this art, especially in the digital world.

Times have changed when it comes to flirting with women. In just 10 years, online social networking sites with instant messengers have become valuable tools for meeting women. Just as there are strategies for flirting with women at clubs, parties, or get togethers, so are there strategies for flirting with women online. But alas hardly anyone knows the rules of the game.

This post is dedicated to all the online Romeos who think that every girl is on internet just for them. And this comes right from some personal experiences too.

Sometimes I have avoided these Romeos by laughing out at them, sometimes gave them my piece of mind, sometimes just turned a blind eye towards them. But none of this has deterred them a bit. Sometimes I wonder if it's just me or every girl faces this wrath.

First of all let me tell you about myself. I am a very average, in fact below average, looking girl-next-door. I am not the spunky one. I am neither very intelligent nor very quirky. In a nutshell, I am a very average average girl. I don't write any explicit messages on my wall. I don't have pretty DP on my profile. In spite of that I don't know why boys come floundering like beehive. I sometimes wonder if something is wrong with me. Anyways this post isn't about me but my experiences. So let me get straight to the point.

I remember the YAHOO/MSN MESSENGER days when just after a girl responded to your hi the pet dialogue of the desperadoes used to be “what are your vitals”. It used to be so unnerving that I stopped using messengers after some time. On top of that the online Romeos were too desperate and bhaiya kinds without any knowhow of English. And I can tolerate anything but not bad language. You should know what to write and how to write. What baffled me was how these guys used to get your email ids which I have not yet figured out. That’s a puzzle still waiting to be solved. Maybe some guys can shed some light on this.

Then came the era of ORKUT. It was a great site since it gave you an opportunity to connect with your old lost pals from schools and colleges but it got misused by these online Romeos as anyone could write or see what was there on your wall without your consent. All weirdos jumped onto the bandwagon  and started sending stupid messages. And it just didn’t stop there, every other day there used to be a story of picture morphing which scared the shit out of me. Strangers became supremely clingy and hounded you until death. Suddenly the old school sherro-shayri became hip and found its way on your walls. Initially we tried ignoring them for some time but since the online romeos didn’t budge from their stand therefore sensible people like me left Orkut for the lesser mortals.

And then came the social networking revolution - FACEBOOK. Facebook changed the definition of friendship. Profile picture became the basis for friendship. If you have a pretty face then be assured you'll have a huge friend circle out of which you'll not know even a fraction of them personally. In Facebook era there's nothing called Six degrees of separation but there's no thing as separation. Everyone is everyone's friend. So what if you have never spoken to each other. If you'll start accepting all friend requests then be assured that you'll not get a spare moment to do anything else but to update status messages, make comments on friend's walls etc. Online Romeos will comment on your personal pictures as if they were there with you when you got those pictures clicked. They would behave as if they can read your mind. They would share PJs thinking that have a great sense of humour. You'll try and ignore them for some time. They'll send you a random game requests, will throw a sheep at you, poke you, send farmville requests and what not. Facebook is still better since it gives the control in your hand. If you see someone trying to be over friendly with you then you just need to unfriend him. SIMPLE!

TWITTER is the latest baby that is being abused quite a lot by Online Romeos. A person will follow you and will have nothing interesting to tweet about but would want to chat with you and would expect you to reply to his lame requests. Come on all you weirdos take a break. Don't you get the message loud and clear - that you either have it or you don't. Why do you try so hard when you know it's not going to work? Twitter as the name suggests is for the people who can tweet with a 'wit'. You need to be interesting enough for a person to follow you and not necessarily good looking. Brain and humour is the key. Most of the 'beauty with brains' look for this combination in boys. So if you have it then flaunt it. And be rest assured that you'll not fall in the category of Online Romeos.

In a nutshell whatever digital age we have lived in, ONLINE ROMEOS are a constant everywhere. Everything can change but not them. They would take their chances at every and any XX. Most of the online Romeos are crazy people who probably wants a healthy normal person to validate their craziness. Since we girls are intelligent sex and don't want to end up being crazy therefore we run away from such weirdos and head for more peaceful waters.

The most unattractive personality trait in men is desperation.  Over emotional and over friendly men are a big no no. Once we realize that a man is just looking to be with someone… anyone, it makes us want to run away miles from him.
Desperation in a man is pathetic.  Someone just looking to be attached sets off so many red flags with me I can’t even stand to talk to him. I am sure most of us would have got many friendship or dating proposals on our first online encounters. Such proposals scare the shit out of me. It is insecure and emotionally unstable. Women do not want a man who just wants someone. They want men who want her and know why.

I want to request all these Online Romeos to take it slowly and not rush into anything. When someone makes himself too accessible, too willing to jump into a relationship, we question him. We wonder how anyone could like us this much this soon. We immediately devalue those people. But when we’re crazy about someone and show it, we want that person to reciprocate. Can’t we just be REAL with each other? Isn’t that what it’s all about?
I don’t see anything wrong if someone casually drops in a line saying “Hi, how’s your day going?” “Check out this video?” That’s not necessarily clingy or desperate. But to start planning a date with someone you just met and don’t even really know yet? That IS desperate, and in a way, scary.

So boys shed your online romeo image and get some intelligence and humour in place :-)

No comments:

Post a Comment