A Better Laugh for Dating Apps

Are your “ha has” feeling womp womp these days? Your triple bar axles — “hahah” — a little fake? Have you always hated “LOL” because nine times out of ten it felt like a lie? And does your own employment of the “cry laughing” emoji make you want stab your thigh with a Sriracha-covered spork?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, then you have digital laughter fatigue.

DLF typically occurs in those who use more than one dating app. Multiple profiles (Bumble, Happn, Hinge, WebbedToeWeb, etc.) mean multiple polite conversations about such mundane pleasantries as: the weather, work, day of the week, evening plans, and whether or not you have any “fun” weekend plans. These benign chit-chat starters are meant to ease strangers into friendship. The problem, however, is they often result in a dead end of flat laughter.

For example:

A: How’s your week going?

B: Good! Just trying not to freeze, haha/lol.

A: Same, haha/lol.

*Commence coma*

Luckily, there’s a solution to the snooze-fest: the exclamation point!

You read right. It’s minimal, classic, and easy to use. It’s also more honest.

Someone’s dumb joke only warrents a “ha”? Use an exclamation point! Like this: !

Someone’s mildly-funny joke deserves at least two beats? Double the pleasure, double the exclamz: !!

And if someone’s really laying it on thick like I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Professional-Comedy-Night butter? Give them the old three-boom: !!!

There’s no stopping the exclamation point. It eliminates characters (great for Twitter!), it’s slightly elusive (you don’t give up real laughs that easy, bud!) and autocorrect can’t fuck up your cool-factor with a violently unwarranted all-caps dramatization.

The exclamation point can be yours for the low price of free ninety-nine. And if you act now, we’ll throw in the question mark — never write an exasperated “WHAT” ever again! — plus shipping and handling.

Happy laughing!

This offer does not apply to “hehe,” which is a creepy way to laugh and should be used in extremely rare cases.