men on snapchat

trying and failing to meet the love of my life

Warning: this post will be incredibly ridiculous to anyone over the age of 20, or whatever the cut off for being a Snapchat user is. I find it ridiculous, and I’m the one who lived it and wrote it.

Picture this: I’m fresh out of a long term relationship, and I’m ready to dip my toes back into the world of men which is a daunting task to say the least. In a culture consumed by digital communication, my little Gen Z brain couldn’t think of any other way to do this besides through social media. In all fairness, I’m too young to “go out”, and the most popping places to go in my small town are the local Target and In-n-Out Burger, so my chances of meeting guys in the wild is slim.

So there I was, resorting to Snapchat, the communication app favored by my age group. I haven’t been on the market for almost a year and a half, so I felt a little out of practice as I added guys who’s little virtual cartoon characters of themselves — known as Bitmojis — looked somewhat promising. I soon started getting “added back” and began sending and receving texts and snaps (Snapchat selfies) from my new potential men.

There are many ways an interaction on Snapchat can begin. You add each other, and then someone makes the first move by snapping, or starting a conversation in the chats. Chats usually begin like something along these lines:

hey

hey

hru? (boys love their acronyms)

i’m good, what about you?

good. wyll? (This stands for “what you look like?”)

If you received a text like this, then you’ve found yourself conversing with a whatyoulooklike warrior as I like to call them. The next expectation is that you send them some pictures of yourself. If you’re lucky, they might compliment you, call you pretty, and show you what they look like in return. Or, they might say something unenthusiastic like “nice” or “cool.” Otherwise, the worst of all, they might take a look at those pictures you carefully selected for them, those photos that you consider to be your best most beautiful photos, and simply remove you as a friend — this is referred to as unadding someone which signifies you are not attractive enough for their standards. The conversation ends before it even begins.

If they’re into you, then the lukewarm conversation will continue with questions about what school you go to, what sports you play, and what your favorite type of music is. Of course, this is all going on with the knowledge that this guy, Brad or Jake or whatever, is swiping between his chats with other girls and probably having the same conversation — or some version of it. But it’s Snapchat, so you are probably doing the same thing.

If all things go well, maybe you’ll schedule a time to meet and hang out. These Snapchat guys all seem to have a hive mind because their idea of a hang out is picking you up, driving to a empty parking lot to sit and listen to music before saying some shit about the backseat being more comfortable and then boom they’re suddenly leaning in for a sloppy kiss and lowering their hands down south.

In one unfortunate case, I really seemed to be hitting it off with a Snapchat guy. He was really sweet and super funny, and we stayed up until two in the morning on the phone just talking about everything. He didn’t seem like all these other Snapchat men who were the living personification of douchebags. We agreed to go out for lunch on Sunday, and I was giddy with anticipation of going on my first date since my break up. I curled my hair and pondered over what perfume to wear when suddenly, a few hours before we were supposed to meet, he cancels. I don’t hear from him until two days later, when he sends me a half-hearted snap of the side of his face, no acknowledgment of the connection we had or the rescheduling of our date that never was. I sent a little “what’s up” text to which he ignored and we haven’t talked since. Sometimes, people will only ever exist within our little screens, and I’ve learned to accept the inevitability of being ghosted.

There are some other special cases regarding Snapchat interactions. Before any snaps can be sent or conversations can be started, a guy might straight up ask, “do u send?” For all you lucky people that don’t know, this means nudes. If you say no, you’ll probably be unadded. Or, if you encounter a particularly bold guy, he might introduce himself simply by sending an unsolicited picture of his junk. I’ve been lucky enough to receive many of these photos in my past couple of weeks back on Snapchat, and I’ve even begun to develop a conditioned reaction: right before I open a snap from someone new, my stomach drops and my body tenses in worried anticipation of being met with a blurry picture of some guys dick. Why do I even use Snapchat again?

Obviously, teenagers and young adults are desperate for connection, hence our dependence on that damned app for meeting people and establishing new relationships (or more often than not, casual hook ups). We lack spaces to go out and just meet people. Snapchat is our version of Tinder or Hinge, often feeling like an idealized version of real life, a reality where we have actual control. Yeah, I don’t really talk to or get approached by guys in real life, but I’ve got a plenty on Snapchat whom I interact with regularly. My little roster inside my phone affirms me when real life fails to. If I think a guy is cute, I don’t have to talk to him in real life. I can simply add him on Snapchat instead, and engage in the complex ritual of subtle flirting without showing him I’m too interested while also accounting how long he takes to respond so I can time my responses accordingly. And people say Gen Z has no social skills!

In conclusion, if my future soulmate is out there, he most definitely is not on Snapchat, and yours isn’t either. Thanks for reading xoxo