You’ve probably already found yourself in this situation at work: you’ve emailed your boss and you thought you were being silly, but they took it the wrong way. Yikes. And it then took you many hours to finally explain yourself, only to make you gun shy about saying anything witty in an email ever again.
So when it comes to online flirting, what can you do to ensure you’re not offending anyone, yet still being cool and seductive?
Make sure you’re rereading what you send to someone – Those notes that you send off spontaneously are the ones that will get you in the most trouble. Read and reread what you’re sending before you push that send button.
Even better, have someone else read it – If you have a friend that you trust, have them read the email as well. They’ll be able to tell you if you need to reword something or if you need to strike something completely out of the email itself.
Use email ‘softeners’ – That’s right, you have full permission to use smiley faces and ‘ha ha’ to make sure anything that’s supposed to be funny comes across as funny. ‘Just kidding’ is another good way to make sure your intentions are clear.
Be overly flirtatious – You could also take the route of being overly flirtatious by using cheesy pick up lines and lovey dovey quotes. This way, the other person will laugh to themselves, knowing the meaning, but not really knowing if you mean it or if you don’t….mysterious person that you are.
Practice, practice, practice – Chances are good that even if you do follow this advice, you’re going to run into troubles and mess up from time to time. Instead of beating yourself up over flirting mistakes, learn from them.