My friends and I have spent an embarrassing amount of time* debating the true, deep meaning of the semi-colon-right-parenthesis, or as its better known, the simple and sassy ‘ 😉 ‘.
My friends.. Milo and Josiah**.. strongly contend that a wink is always a flirty thing. I contend – with the strength of a bear! – that winks are meant for teasing. Sometimes that teasing is flirting, and sometimes it’s just for funsies.
Even the names of winks give us a clue – the knowing wink, the conspiratorial wink… Neither of these is supposed to convey “Hey gurl, I wanna get witchu.” They were designed to convey some light-hearted fun, some mischievous silly-sils if you will. I refuse to believe that every time a man engages in lively banter with me that he is flirting.
As a Woman Who Winks (WWW) I can say with firm certainty that my jokes and/or winks are not meant to convey my romantic or sexual interest. If they have been, I have put out an invitation to my Dad, my academic advisor, my undergraduate assistant, and everyone who lays eyes on my Facebook status updates. So.. no. Just stop.
One of my peripheral visions in life, that I’m nonetheless deeply committed to, is to make people lolz. I’m 100% sure that there are also men out there who share a similar commitment to inducing lolz on all sorts of people – some they may be attracted to, others they’re probably not. I WILL NOT over-interpret their jokes as some low key declaration of their personal attraction for me.
Yet we must deal with the Milo’s and Josiah’s in our life, who apparently think there is no such thing as innocent fun in the world. Therefore, I propose that the ambiguous wink be supplemented with extra emojis to clear the air. Please consider the following:
😉 + 😀 = [platonic] “Heehee”
😉 + 😥 = “I have a hot pepper in my eye”
😉 + ❤ = “Hey gurl/boi, I wanna get witchu”
So WWW and MWW, stand strong! Keep winking with wild abandon! And if you meet a Milo or Josiah.. just be prepared to supplement your winks so they don’t “get the wrong idea,” as some would say.
—- EDITORIAL NOTES —-
*Because any amount of time discussing this in detail is embarrassing.
**Real content, fake names. No one’s reputation should have to suffer through association with #galloblog.
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