Snapchat Needs to Stop Being the New Phone Number

If one more boy asks for my Snapchat instead of my phone number I’m going to give up completely on meeting anyone! Being in my young 20s and a part of the Gen Z group, we are known to be all about social media. I mean I wouldn’t call myself old fashion but I started to see this trend once I transferred to a bigger College. Growing up, it was just normal to ask for someone's number, for homework, clubs, or just because you became friends. It's super simple to do, all you have to do is hand me the phone with the keypad open. Girls always just gave me their numbers, but boys always seemed to give me their Snapchats. When I went to community college I only experienced exchanging snapchats with a boy once, but soon after I had his number. At what point did we stop giving people our phone numbers and starting giving out Snapchats?

Now, don’t get me wrong I see the benefits of using Snapchat. First off, it can feel safer. I think people feel more comfortable giving it out because you can delete that person whenever you want, and they have no other ways of contact (unless you give them your last name, then they can find you on Facebook, but who has the effort for that). Secondly, Snapchat's made it too easy to exchange information. When getting someone's Snapchat handle all you have to do is hold out your snapchat info and the other person holds down their thumb on their snapchat camera and BOOM, just like that my account is on their phone. So when you're drunk and at a bar, it’s much simpler than putting in the 10 numbers, and your name AND actually get that all right. Now I’m not here to bash this method if used correctly, and in my experience it’s usually not. In a perfect world we would use the messenger on Snapchat, maybe send like a funny photo of something here and there and then if the conversation goes well, plan to hang out about a week later and exchange numbers. It should be used as a transitional stage not the end stage.

The reason I’m so passionate on this topic is because this happened with me with this guy I met at one of the school bars. I was having good conversation with him, his roommate and myself, we all seemed to vibe really well. Cool, if anything we could be friends, I need some guy friends out here. We exchanged Snapchats and I shortly went home after. Two days go by and nothing, he hasn’t watched my story (but his roommate has), hasn’t posted, so I’m like okay, that’s chill, but like inside I’m like are you going to contact me?!? Later that night he sends me a photo that basically says that he lost his phone in his Uber ride home and just got it back. Phew. I send back a photo of this dog that was at this apartment I was at saying, “I only go to things for dogs.” My awkward way of trying to spark a conversation. I get nothing back, and this is were it gets weird in my opinion. For the next week we Snapped back and forth and really had NO CONVERSATION! He would send me a selfie like every morning, like bro I really hope you didn’t expect one back because I don’t do those. I would try and spark a conversation, say a joke or something… and his response would just end the topic. We would watch each other story, he even let me see his Snapchat location. So after a week of that we talked some more but he wasn’t really asking me anything so I was starting to get over it. We went to the same football game Friday and not once did he try hanging out with me. We literally messaged each other during the game, and I could literally see the back of his head like 20 rows down. I would post I was bored and he would be the first person to look at it. Like you’re clearly bored, I said I was bored, HANG OUT WITH ME! What was the point of getting my Snapchat information if you never wanted to hang out with me again? So you can see what I post everyday? So I can see what you do everyday? Like what is the point of this

Me Looking for the Point of This

Finally I was over this and wanted to see what would happen if I just asked him if he wanted to hang out, after about 3 weeks of him watching all my stories and having some conversation, and my power in my apartment went out at 4 PM so it was getting dark and I wanted to get out of the apartment anyways. I message him on Snapchat like “I get if you’re busy or wouldn’t want to but would you be down to get food with me right now, my power went out.” He said he was at school doing math lab and then asked why my power was out but never tried to hang out with me again. So I shot my shot and was over it, I think I messaged him one more time about a dog and then I just deleted him, because I didn’t like how he would watch my Snapchat Story (which is my most personal form of social media at this point) but he didn’t know me.

Moral of the story is now when I go out and a boy asks for my Snapchat I say no, and if I enjoyed hanging out with them, I give them my number. Lets not tip toe around it, if you want to hang out with me or get to know me, we can text. Let’s not do this weird thing were we see what each other are doing but never talk, it’s exhausting.

Phone numbers aren’t that scary.

I promise, I can still block your phone number.