Real Live College Girl Cassidy: A Flirting Guide for Facebook

Ever wanted to get inside a girl’s mind? Want to know whether all girls are crazy, or if you just don’t quite understand them (hint: it’s the 2nd one…)

Luckily, Real Live College Girl Cassidy is here to answer all your questions about women and relationships, with poise, charisma and a little bit of humor. And don’t worry, she won’t judge you on your questions… unless you seem cute.  Girls—pass this onto your guy friends and boyfriends, stat!
 
Where is the line drawn between social media networking and creeping? Is friending/following a girl ever too forward? What about wall posts, messages or tagging?
-Technologically Timid at Tulane 
 
Dear Tech,
I love this question because I am a huge social media fan (ok, more like addict…)! And it is definitely a relevant question in today’s world of college dating. But, like you said, there is a line between networking and creeping. The line might be a little bit different for some girls who hate social media and/or never talk to guys online, but I’ll answer this from the perspective of most girls you’ll meet (in person or online) at college who appreciate what Facebook has to offer. I have compiled a short Facebook Flirting Guide for you. In this guide, I’ll break Facebook flirting down into two categories: Fail-Free Flirting and Freaky Flirting.
 
Facebook Friending
Fail-Free: Ah, the dreaded Facebook friend request … I say, if you’ve met the girl before, go ahead and friend her. If you don’t think she’ll remember who you are (because there were a lot of people meeting that night, or it was a college party, and everyone wasn’t in the best mindset for remembering things … haha,) then you can attach a short message to the friend request. But yes, friending is definitely okay (if she doesn’t like you, she can just not accept it! That’s the worst-case scenario there).
 
Freaky: If you’ve never met a girl in person before, she most likely won’t accept your friend request and will think you are creepy. For example, if you and the mystery girl have a mutual friend but have never met in person, it would be creepy to friend her because she’ll have no clue who you are. If you can, use that mutual friend to meet her in person, so that she knows who you are before you friend her online.

“Liking”
Fail-Free: There are a lot of things to “like” on Facebook: pictures, statuses, links, wall posts… it can get overwhelming! But, if you are trying to flirt with a girl, “liking” something of hers can be an easy, yet subtle, way of getting her attention. If you “like” her profile picture, she will probably assume that you think it’s a good picture – and, therefore, assume that you think she’s attractive (which you do… right?) “Like” her status if you want to support what she’s doing, or especially if you two talked before about whatever the status is about.

Freaky: You probably shouldn’t “like” someone’s wall post on her wall, or something she posts on someone else’s wall, unless it’s something that relates to you. If it doesn’t relate to you, then it means you are somewhat Facebook stalking her (even if the News Feed makes it easy to). And, if you do choose this flirting tactic, stick to only “liking” at most three things per week. You don’t want to overwhelm her or creep her out. “Liking” is good when you want to be subtle, but if you do it all the time, she’ll think you don’t have the guts to say anything to her, even online… and that’s no good.