To Snap(or-not-to)chat

Cybersex aside *cough cough*, Snapchat seems a bit pointless to me. Maybe it’s just that I’m one year too old or something, but it appears that a lot of my friends and I have missed out on this particular craze.

Is it just an exception? Based on our particular social backgrounds, level of education and career standing? Or is it just that we’re getting over the hill and we’re no longer going to be keeping up with the trends.

I personally suspect that it’s a combination of the two, although I quite enjoy pulling stupid faces at my bestie, seeing as she lives an hour or so away and I don’t want her to forget what my stupid face looks like. However, in the last couple of months, I’ve been going on Snapchat a little more frequently due to one thing. Online dating.

Now I have mentioned before that I am on Tinder, the casual dating app that’s all the range right now (I’m at least up to scratch with that trend!) I was originally quite wary about giving out my details to the guys I came into contact with on there but as I have grown in confidence, I have also slacked off in keeping aloof and secure. Snapchat seemed like a good way to gingerly step up the communication. It was a level up from tindering but a level down from long emails or meeting face to face, seeing as you’re limited to a few characters or 14 seconds of video. It was a good way to see what the other person looked like behind those carefully selected profile pictures as well as if they could offer up any good one liners.

I still think that Snapchat is an acceptable mode for this pre-communication malarkey, but now I think that after you’ve met them, it should be put to bed until you’ve literally gone to bed with them.

Afterall, Snapchat is basically a way of giving your recipient a quick glance at your face or whatever is in front of you. When you’re at that middle stage where you still want to compose your face into attractiveness or have a meaningful conversation, it’s not the thing to use. Snapchat is for taking pictures of your cups of tea with the comment “Jealous?” attached, or pulling the most horrendous expressions imaginable. Otherwise, it is not an acceptable form of communication and it is certainly not the place to have a proper conversation.

I found myself going on several dates with a guy last month who seemed to think that it was a good idea to make conversation on Snapchat. What I realised about this was that it was really quite boring. We went from quite long messages on Facebook to limiting ourselves to a sentence or less with a photo attached. It just felt a little backwards to me and it became apparent that it must have been because we had very little to say to each other. Inevitably, it did not work out. *PHEW*.