“OH MY GOSH, HE LIKED MY INSTA PIC.”

“Who?!”

“Remember, that cute guy from my Psych class that followed me last week?”

“Oh yeah! What picture did he like?”

“He liked that one from Santa Monica from 32 weeks ago.”

“Oh my gosh, he’s totally trying to get your attention.”

Nowadays, relationships have become less about dates and more about likes. Since when has such minimal effort been able to pass for flirting? He is literally in pajamas at 9 p.m. watching Shark Week and just double tapped a screen and you’re swooning. You find yourself scrolling through your timeline on Twitter or Instagram looking for that one person’s name and connecting whether or not they retweeted you or liked your picture to if they “like” you. These little exchanges should not be enough to make butterflies explode from your abdomen, but they totally are.

“So, are you guys talking?!”

“Well, we have a 9-day streak on Snapchat, so you can say it is getting kind of serious.”

Being in contact with someone for a prolonged amount of time is definitely special, but him sending you at least two selfies a day does not constitute contact the way it used to. Besides, he could be sending those snaps to the girl you are sitting next to on the trolley. Let’s get this straight: a 9-day Snapchat streak does not make you any more “together” than you were before. It just means his snap game is strong and he’s feeling his new haircut.

“I’m going to message him on Facebook.”

“So, you are going to slide into his DM’s?”

“Yeah, but it is going to be super casual. I’ll just ask him if he wants to be partners for the project coming up.”

And thus the “talking stage” is born. Our generation has perfected the art of maintaining the laid-back atmosphere of friendship while exploring the possibility of something more. It all starts with a follow; then likes are exchanged and suddenly a DM about a class you don’t care about that (hopefully) leads to a study date hangout. But never use the word date; that is way too much commitment for me right now and I am a free bird that you cannot tie down, sorry.

“Have you texted him yet?”

“No I can’t, he opened my snapchat and didn’t reply to it. Besides, its only been two days. It would look bad.”

Here’s a tip: If you like someone, or you think you might, or you just want to talk to them, talk to them. This idea of constantly waiting for someone else to make a move that our society has created makes it near impossible to get to know someone within a relatively sound amount of time. And if someone is texting you and you do not want them to or you have no interest in them (which is totally fine as well, you are not a dating machine) then do not hit them with the read receipt. Just be honest and tell them that you are super busy with school right now and your phone is broken and “new phone who dis.”

Honestly, relationships have changed so much in the last decade with the invention with the Internet I do not know how we have not all lost our minds yet. Dating was confusing enough before, and now that there are 297493 ways to communicate, there is just as many ways to read a person. But remember that people are people, and the best way to get to know someone is to talk to them face to face. So spend time with them at lunch, go to the coffee shop together, and always swipe twice at the Caf so they know it is real.