It’s no secret that we live in a generation where the norm is to “update” and “refresh” your newsfeed. As we all know, social media is an enormous part of our ever-changing world. Though it is constantly changing, social media seems to prevail within our culture and has become a huge centerpiece to our daily lives. We wake up, check Twitter. We go to school, refresh Instagram. We “like” this, we “like” that. Maybe not in that order, or maybe in that exact order, but either way, most of us can’t go an hour without refreshing and checking our social media accounts. We always want to know what’s going on around us, so we check our accounts again and again to stay connected with the people in our circles.

Recently it seems that I’ve heard conversation after conversation about, “When should I like his picture?” Or, “Should I favorite that tweet now, or wait till later?” Or how about, “Should I make this my Snapchat story?” Social media has become an outlet for flirting with someone we may like or see as a potential interest, almost without us even realizing it.

In other words, we live in a time where you can’t just like his picture on Instagram the second he posts it because he’ll think you’re too eager, or maybe he won’t even see that you liked it because it got lost in the other likes. You want to stand out amongst the rest. There’s a definite art to proper social media flirtation.

For example, you’re sitting in class and you look down to see that you have a new notification from Facebook. You roll your eyes because it’s probably just an aunt sharing a post with you about animals doing weird things, per usual, but instead you flip out because it’s a crush who has just liked a profile picture of yours from two months ago. So what does this mean for you? In the mind of a modern girl with a smartphone and an Instagram account, it means that he’s definitely interested and you’re probably going to date. It was his way of saying, “Hey, what’s up?”

If you are an avid social media user, then you know, maybe a little too well, the absolute nightmare of being 61 weeks deep into your crush’s instagram profile and there it is, the accidental “like” of a photo. You are then faced with two decisions: 1. Unlike and hope he or she does not notice the notification or 2. Leave it and face your embarrassing blunder head on. You’re basically committing social media suicide. These just happen to be the trials and tribulations of our generation. It is the hand we’ve been dealt.

There is a true etiquette to “social media flirtation” and all that it entails. I’d like to personally wish you all the best of luck navigating the world of social media and hope you can all find a perfect balance between “likes” and liking someone.