Striking up a flirty yet casual tone over text requires a deft hand. You can’t use too many exclamation points, lest you come across as over-eager, and you can’t use capital letters, lest you come across as over the age of 40. It’s an art I’ve perfected, so when I finally got the chance to text my crush, I didn’t think I had anything to fear. That is, until autocorrect – tool of the devil – turned my extremely chill, mysterious smiley face into a cheeky and almost overtly sexual emoji.
I’ve had a huge crush on my musician neighbor for about eight months now, so when I intercepted her on the sidewalk yesterday, I asked if she’d want to get a drink, and we exchanged numbers. The lyrical dance of texting began. I texted first, right there on the sidewalk, to show her I meant business. She replied entirely in lowercase letters – of course, she’s a pro.
In a moment of vulnerability, I typed out “not to be a huge bitch, but I’m really glad we’re going to hang out :)”. It was the perfect note. Sincere but undercut by the sarcasm of the first phrase, topped off with a perfectly casual smiley face. I confidently hit send, but autocorrect did something so insidious, it shook me to my core: It turned my smiley face into one of those blushing emojis.
A blushing emoji was the exact opposite of the tone I wanted to convey. Where an analog smiley face says, “I’m so confident that I’m even willing to break the tension for us both with a casual smile,” a blushing emoji says, “I’m 14 and obsessed with you. I’m shy but in an annoying way. I use words like ‘eepy’ and ‘uwu’ in face-to-face conversations. I will probably kill you one day.”
I rushed to edit the message, but she was already typing – she’d seen it! I was done for. Her little text bubble appeared and disappeared several times before disappearing for good. It was over. I’d scared her off. There was only one thing left to do: belatedly respond, “*:)” to show her I meant to send the analog one.
Just like that, we were back in business. We made plans to get drinks that night, and as I walked out the door, I quickly texted “omw” to casually say that I was on my way. How stupid I was.
Autocorrect immediately corrected this to “On my way!” which was way too eager. She responded saying she’d actually come down with a last-minute flu and was also moving to the West Coast tomorrow.
