mental-health | The Birds and The Bees

Social media can be difficult to navigate as there are unknown “rules” and behaviors that are widely followed when first interacting with others, especially those you are interested in romantically. This aid demonstrates several unspoken guidelines, intimidating behaviors, and tips on staying within the guidelines on social media when trying to flirt. It is worth mentioning that this is not a comprehensive list of all guidelines and intimidating behaviors, but rather a guide to help you talk to your crush online in a fun, respectful way that keeps everyone comfortable. As a 21-year-old who has been online from a young age, some of these guidelines are based on my own experiences and knowledge.

Table of unspoken guidelines, intimidating behaviors, and tips on staying in the guidelines. From top going down, unspoken guidelines: following/friending someone after them meeting in person, following/friending someone on one social media platform, liking a post/story, commenting on recent post/story, leaving relevant comments on posts/stories, sending 1-2 direct messages and waiting for a response before sending another message, the first direct messages are short and include a question, use emojis that match message tone, only commenting/messaging things you can say face-to-face, and ask for consent when posting someone. From top going down, intimidating behaviors: following/friending someone on multiple social media platforms at once, liking past posts and multiple posts in succession, leaving multiple comments and commenting on past posts, sending multiple messages at once and not waiting for a response before sending another message, screenshotting posts and stories, and consistently checking a person's social media for any changes. From top going down, staying in the guidelines: can browse through a person's friends/following, can look at past posts and stories without liking them, can look at a person's tagged photos without liking the post or following the friend, and can tell people who you trust, like friends and family, that you are getting to know someone, but keeping the details of your budding romance off of social media.

Example of a relevant comment: Someone posts a photo of them graduating school and you comment, “Congratulations!”

Example of a direct message: You talked to someone last week about a book series and sent this message: “Hi! It’s [your name], we talked last week about [book series]. I started reading it and really liked it. Do you have any other recommendations?”

Examples of using emojis: (1) You are messaging your crush about a movie that you both recently watched and talking about a scene that left you in disbelief: “I can’t believe that happened 😭 I was not expecting it at all!” (2) You made plans to hang out with your crush in person and sent this message: “I’m excited to hang out on Saturday 😊 See you then!”

Teen Vogue has a list of questions to keep the conversation going with your crush, whether you’re looking for something low-pressure, flirty, deep, random, interesting, or just plain fun.

The Napoleon Cat Blog gives some tips for commenting on someone’s post, showing different examples for different post scenarios. Some of them are intended for friends, but can still be used for your crush’s posts. Their 35 Short Comments for Instagram section is best used when you first start commenting, as they are simple, not intimidating, and friendly.

What is consent?

According to Planned Parenthood, sexual consent is “an agreement to participate in sexual activity. Consent lets someone know that sex is wanted.”

Sexual activity can be a lot of different types of activities, from kissing to sexual intercourse to oral sex.

Judging consent between partners, as well as self-reflection about consent, is crucial for sexual activity. This article will provide resources for accessing and reflecting on consent, and ensure that consent is an easier conversation.

A very helpful tool to gauge consent is the Verbal Informed Sexual Consent Assessment Tool. This source shares important reflection questions to analyze whether someone can give consent, giving a checklist as well as examples of questions to ask.

For more information about legality and restrictions about consent, refer to our webpages article about the Capacity to Consent to Sexual Activity.

The Conversation of Consent

Consent can be a very simple conversation. Once you know that you and your partner are capable, informed, and confident in making decisions about sexual behaviors, have a conversation with your partner. Ask your partner what their boundaries are, and what sexual behaviors are okay with them. Sexual behaviors are a continuous conversation, that is that the conversation will continue to come up, and the result of the conversation can change. If you or your partner consents to kissing one day, and says “no” to kissing the next day, consent is being taken away and kissing shouldn’t continue to happen until consent is given again. For tools about how to revoke consent, refer to our webpage graphic about Ways to Say No .

This website from Planned Parenthood gives more examples of how to talk with your partner about consent, including examples such as how to check in on consent.

These two videos explain consent and boundaries. The second video also gives an example!

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