Why you should be careful with the wink smiley

A good acquaintance of mine asked me this weekend if I knew any nice hotels for him in Paris. Now, as luck would have it, we are both going to be in Paris for work next week to be precise and we had agreed to go out for a glass of wine one evening. Later, he texted me with the following question: “Did you happen to look for a cozy little hotel… ;-).” What. Is. That. Wink. Doing. There?!

Was this a subtle hint? Our friendship is purely platonic, but he is incredibly single and quite good-looking. Not a hair on my head thinks otherwise, but because of that text, I suddenly started doubting his intentions. Long story short, later we were on the phone, and it turned out he was head over heels for a girl, so I concluded that I didn’t need to worry about anything. When I decided to write this piece, I asked him about that wink, to which his response was “oh heavens yes no that was just because I thought it was silly to be chasing after you to see if you had found a hotel for me.” See, these are dangerous situations.

People, be careful with that wink smiley. I started to fiddle around and realized that every question or comment combined with a wink smiley suddenly becomes a bit dubious:

“How old is your sister ;-)”

“Could you bring some cucumbers from the supermarket later ;-)”

“No, I’m working from home because a package is being delivered for me today ;-)”

“Say hi to your grandma for me ;-)”

See, ALL FREAKY. Besides that, I always find a wink smiley quite a sign of weakness. It is used to soften the statement made (like with the hotel question), but if you don’t feel comfortable with your request, change your request or phrase it differently – and leave that smiley out of it. In short, the wink smiley brings very little good, and we are all better off if its use is kept to a strict minimum. And I should know ;-).