Polly Vernon
I’VE IDENTIFIED A new species of man. It happened after this guy I vaguely know started sliding into my Instagram DMS. He’s hot and I’m me (a terrible flirt who’s been in a relationship for so long she can be naive when it comes to managing the dynamics of modern intergender interaction), so I indulge it (or, more accurately: ‘enjoy it’) at first.
In my defence, he’s hot… SORRY, I mean: connected to a real-life friendship group. I assumed he’d feel socially accountable enough to not massively cross any boundaries, anything that could render things mega-awks when our paths crossed IRL (which they do, at least once a month). And anyway, I knew I could handle this! I’d been very clear, very early on, that I’m with someone; plus my advanced capacity for what the young people call ‘banter’ (though I prefer WR – Witty Repartee) meant I could meet his interest with dramadefusing aplomb!
Reader, I was wrong. DM dude proved charming, canny and relentless. After a fortnight, I started feeling overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of messages (first thing in the morning, last thing at night, in the midst of a deadline, in the midst of a shower…) all speckled with requests for pictures: ‘nothing full on, just stuff you wouldn’t make public…’ (NB: me replying, truthfully, that the only pics I won’t make public are ones in which I look ugly, did not divert him.) I became increasingly unsure when he found time to do any work.
Faintly unnerved, I ask my best man-slut friend R how to de-escalate this situation. I knew R would know, because he’s not beyond sending a message or 27 himself.
‘STOP MESSAGING BACK, YOU MUPPET!’ R says. ‘STOP IT NOW!’
Really? It’s not like I’m saying anything sexy-naughty (I clarify). I’m not encouraging him…
‘YOU ARE!’ R says. ‘It’s not about your content! It’s that you’re messaging at all!’
R explains that some men are gay and some men are straight, some like domination or feet – but some just like messaging. Messaging is their kink, their Thing ; their entire sexual orientation. It is not a facilitator of intimacy, or a precursor to meeting up, or having actual sex… It’s the whole goddamn point!
I shall call them Message Men, I decree! And so it is that I identify a new species of man.
‘Call ’em what you like. Just don’t message this one ever again,’ instructs R. I don’t.
Message Man gives up on me online almost immediately; next time I see him in the flesh, he’s perfectly civil, like he vaguely recognises me? But can’t quite say from where? Classic Message Man, I think. Classic Message Man.