Why you should never argue via WhatsApp

Ho. Wait a minute. You blink and look three times at your screen. What is this sour bitchy comment? You feel yourself getting angry. Your heart rate spikes and your hands itch to type back. The quick-witted person you are immediately bites back. Your mouth is your gun and your words work like bullets. You fire away. And now? Has an atomic bomb exploded, is it action-reaction and a game of hate ping-pong as a result. Gotta love WhatsApp.

Especially in long-distance relationships, it’s the biggest number 1 irritation: that endless fuss over the app. Arguments on the app: we all do it, but it’s the dumbest and most nonsensical thing ever. This is why.

You’re already irritated, so you’re going to misinterpret each other anyway

If you can’t look someone in the eyes, comments come across differently nine times out of ten. Via WhatsApp, you don’t hear how someone says something and how someone looks while saying it. You read a sentence the way you want to read it, and that’s already with an irritated tone in your head during an argument. Trust me: the argument becomes unnecessarily unpleasant and long.

Additionally: in the heat of the moment, you both react impulsively and emotionally

Which makes you think when you read the conversation back later: well, being mature is different. I understand that sometimes you want to roar everything off your chest: but do that in your notes. Let it rest for a night, read it again the next morning, and if you still feel that way, then go ahead and send it. But believe me: you’re likely to nuance it.

One of you can suddenly go into ignore mode

Which makes the blood that’s already boiling suddenly go a thousand times hotter when you feel like you’re the one waiting for a message.

Then there’s that damn autocorrect

What’s even more awkward is that in the middle of your I-hate-you-very-much sentence, you suddenly see a stupid word pop up that you don’t want at all. Or that you say: ‘sure’ which suddenly becomes ‘sure whore’. Annoying.

And then there are also those annoying smileys

So you might not mean anything bad with that wink smiley, while half of the WhatsAppers really find that to come across as quasi-aggressive/know-it-all.

I’m telling you: arguing over WhatsApp is – no matter how tempting it sometimes is – never the solution. Let it sink in and call the most annoying person ever, or better yet: go visit. Be the bigger person. Life is short. Please. And read these tips for arguments from May as well.