TWEET ME IN THE MORNING

“You’ve met someone,” my best friend Jacqueline proclaimed as she caught me sneaking glances at my phone over drinks.

“Don’t get too excited,” I replied, handing Jacs my phone. “It’s early, and I’m just casually seeing his Instagram feed for the time being.”

After meeting Ryan at a cocktail party, I got a little zing when I saw his profile picture pop up the next day — he had started following me on the photo-centric platform, and his Instagram feed was better than I had hoped. There were a few good travel-scapes, a couple of photos of foam drawings taken at a favorite coffeehouse in my neighborhood, some discreet selfies (only one shirtless beach shot, which is still in good taste) and check-ins at one or two of my preferred cultural destinations. According to this carefully curated source, we were perfect for each other.

“He’s got a Twitter link in his pro…” Jacs could hardly get the words out before I snatched my phone back. He was witty, too — not always easy in 140 characters — and he’d retweeted a lot of things I’d favorited. He also retweeted one of my articles around the same time he followed me on Instagram. This was definitely flirtation in the new social media milieu.

“Are you going to follow him back?” Jacs asked.

“On Instagram, but I’m only going to favorite, not follow on Twitter. I don’t want to seem too eager.”

“Good call,” she sighed. “It’s unsettling when someone friends too quickly. It’s good you’re taking it slow.”

It wasn’t the first time social media had fueled a crush for me or my friends. A threesecond search can turn up a variety of platforms a prospective match is active on, allowing you to do a lot of personal investigation. Sometimes you discover amazingly specific, compatible interests (a deep love of growing your own vegetables; a desire to visit Rome and re-create moments from a Fellini film); other times there’s a grisly profile detail that turns you off forever (a deep love of slaughtering your own beef; a desire to re-create moments from a Tobe Hooper film).

But even worse is if the potential someone’s social media self is too good — so compelling that the person behind the profile can never live up to the facade they’ve created. As I scrolled through Ryan’s feed, I felt my crush deepening and I wondered: Can a prospective match ever really match up to their Kelvin-filter-glowing selfie?

Things with Ryan accelerated quickly. First, he followed me on Instagram, then he started making comments, so I’d quote-retweet something he said on Twitter. This give-and-take gave way to other social platforms, so we were further connected without ever having to go on an actual date.

Flirting via social makes it possible to maintain a near-constant connection to your crush and, after a week, I began to look forward to Ryan tweeting me in the morning. All our highly charged electronic exchanges led to little daydreams about the things we’d do together: We could pick apples and create Vines of our day, try out that new fusion bar and check in together at our location, tag each other in assessments of our date-night movie and maybe, one day, Instagram with our own couple hashtag (not really). After three more technological interactions, we arranged an in-person date.

I arrived first and mined his feeds for discussion points, in case we had a lull in @ responses, I mean, conversation. When Ryan walked in, he looked just the way he did in his selfies, even wearing a jacket I had complimented him on (#varsitychic). Conversation wasn’t a problem, although we did have a few moments where our knowledge of one another was jarring compared with our lack of physical proximity until a few moments ago.

After spending a couple of pleasant hours together, we said our goodbyes and promised a follow-up. All seemed great until he texted me a few hours later and I felt the same zing as when he had started following me on Instagram a week earlier. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for one thing: It was a zing — ever present in our digital interactions — that I hadn’t quite felt in the bar that night.

Although we enjoyed each other’s company, after a few dates it became clear that, for all our shared platforms, this wasn’t a match. We kept up on social, since that was where we had established our friendship, but the morning tweets tapered off and, eventually, I saw he was Instagramming himself with another guy.

A short time later, I found myself deep in conversation and hitting it off with someone at an opening-night party. A moment came where he requested we take a selfie; I obliged.

“What’s your Instagram handle?” he asked. “I want to tag you.”

A second later my phone buzzed and his profile picture showed up in my notifications.

“I just started following you,” he announced, playfully touching my arm and tilting his head toward me. I felt a zing, a definite good sign.

“May I see your phone?” I asked, creating a new entry for myself in his contact list and giving him my phone number.

“Call me,” I said. Maybe this time I’d fall for the person instead of his profile feed.

WORD OF THE WEEK Twirt: Verb. The act of flirting via social media, specifically Twitter.