Read on Twitter
On Twitter if you're not sure what to say to someone or you're not sure how to interact with someone, you should probably step back and reframe to a different question: why? Why do you need to say anything?
On Twitter, if someone tweets something difficult and adds "Please, no hugs." for whatever reason (such as they don't find strangers pretending to hug them reassuring) you'll see a lot of replies that go "not sure what to say but [something *like* an e-hug]".
Sometimes including "don't know what to say and you said no hugs not I want you to know hugs are available" or just "I know you said no hugs but hugs"
Or when people vent about something they don't like and/or state a boundary and a dozen people they don't know immediately "jokingly" do it in reply.
Some of them will say that's how they act with their friends, and they have a friendly feeling towards the poster.
Some of them will say that's how they act with their friends, and they have a friendly feeling towards the poster.
And some will say that they just didn't know that else to say.
Ironically, for both of these impulses, the more serious and important the tweet being joked about is, the stronger the impulse to say something, anything, to show it has been received and acknowledged will be.
Ironically, for both of these impulses, the more serious and important the tweet being joked about is, the stronger the impulse to say something, anything, to show it has been received and acknowledged will be.
"Wow, this is serious... I should say something. Oh, I have nothing to say. Wait, I know. A funny, friendly joke."
This is where the false intimacy of social media trips people up: face to face if someone says something important *to you* and you don't respond that is weird, rude, and awkward.
A lot of us bring that impulse online.
A lot of us bring that impulse online.
Some people *are* just boundary-testing jerks who, if they see a woman assert a boundary they must immediately probe it.
And that's my first response when someone does the "haha I jokingly do the exact thing you just asked us not to" thing.
And that's my first response when someone does the "haha I jokingly do the exact thing you just asked us not to" thing.
Buuut when taking it together with other, similar phenomenon I begin to think there's something else happening, and it's mainly just people who don't know what to say in response to something but feel very strongly that they need to say something.
To which I would say: if you don't know what to say to someone, step back and ask yourself *why* you have to say anything.
Are they talking to you personally?
Do you *want* to talk to them?
Are they talking to you personally?
Do you *want* to talk to them?
And I'm not saying that wanting to talk to someone isn't a valid reason to talk to them (as long as you observe boundaries) but if you figure out that's what's going on you can work on talking to them because you want to, not necessarily in comments on a post about boundaries.
