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In today’s social media environment, it’s not uncommon for people to immediately friend or follow each other on facebook and twitter once they meet.  It’s so common, even I made this mistake.

I met a guy, he seemed nice, we friended each other on fb about two weeks before we went out on a date.

It was downhill from there.

It was pretty much over when he cancelled on me saying he was tired and then spent the next 3 consecutive days partying (according to the ridiculous amount of pictures he posted to his facebook page) and then didn’t attempt to reschedule. I’m not bitter that he clearly didn’t want to go out with me anymore because to say that anyone who regularly parties on consecutive days during the week is not my type is an understatement, but I like to find out someone is a lying asshole the old fashioned way.

Through female intution!

When you’re interested in someone the LAST thing you should do is follow or friend them on a social networking site. In fact, even if I get into a serious, exclusive, committed relationship with someone (imagine that!) I shall not be their friend on facebook (unless our privacy settings block us from everything but sharing a relationship status) and I damn sure won’t follow them on twitter.

Why?

Because the first thing you do when you friend someone on facebook/myspace is look through their wall posts, photos, and status comments.  You’re looking to get a sense of who they are, what types of people they hang with, but more importantly, who on their list have they been sleeping with or trying to sleep with?!?!?!

It is at this point you start to read WAY too much into every well wish and innuendo.  Next thing you know, it feels like new dude is cheating on you and yall haven’t even been out on a real date.

I have gotten many a man in trouble by writing something that is in my opinion innocuous and reflective of my friendship with him, only to have him send me a message like “I had to delete your comment, yo’ my girl was asking about you.”   To which I respond in true J Danielle fashion “WTF is she talking about?  if I wanted you I coulda had you already.”

Which is why  I beg all of you to quit with the friending and following. You are ruining your relationships and more importantly mine.  The whole point of dating is to find out about someone not to research them and draw your own dumb/inaccurate conclusions.  A date is a time to enjoy another person’s company not to slowly roll out questions you have about their last couple tweets.

Twitter’s slogan is “What Are You Doing?” and it reminds of a little story about a wise woman…my mom.

My parents have been married for 33 years and like most married men, my dad is dependent on my mom for everything from food to conversation.  One day, like many days, my dad was repeatedly calling my mom on her cell phone. So finally my dad calls me, who, at the time was living 547 miles away.  He asks me if I’d heard from my mom because “she’s not answering her cell phone.” I said “no I haven’t, but I’m sure she’s fine.” He says “mmhmm…I don’t know. She’s not answering.”  We hang up, I call my mom on her cell, she answers on the FIRST ring. I said “MOM! What you up to?” She said “Nothing, girl I’m in Walmart getting my prescription filled.” I said “Oh…well daddy called me and he said you weren’t answering your phone.”  And she said “I DIDN’T answer it.” I said “why not, you answered it for me.” She said, “oh that’s different…Yo’ Daddy don’t need to know what I’m doing.”

WELL SAID!