I hate you, you stupid bitch. I can’t believe I thought we had something! I thought you were so nice! How can you choose to hang out with some stupid fuck over me?”

I would like to start by saying that I am a nice person. I volunteer at the animal shelter, and I have once or twice pulled all-nighters with classmates to help them edit and re-write English papers. Hell, I once pulled strings to get a roommate (who I was fighting with over her lack of rent money at the time) a split-second flight to Las Vegas when she found out her grandma was sick.

The problem with being nice is that occasionally you end up with a person that misconstrues that niceness as something else. Couple that with a quick Google search of my name, and a realization that the first six pages are all about sex, and you have a recipe for a shitstew of problems.

This column is about a rule that is often forgotten by confused boys and girls everywhere: A friendly response to a casual text message does not a relationship make.

The three guys who have done this to me all found me on the Internet. Each of them went to the same school as me, so I accepted their friend requests for the sake of school spirit. They started talking to me slowly, and then at some point, figured out my cellphone number. The texts always started as “hey i need advice” or “hey where’s a good bar?” to which I responded accordingly.

Over various (and often short) periods of time, shit started getting weird, until I had to end the conversations forcefully. One ended with a ton of aggressive dick pics, and I had to block him when he drew a giant cock on my car. One sent me a series of “fuck you” texts, followed by an apology and then more “fuck you” texts. Another threatened to kill himself if I stopped talking to him.

Crazy, right?

As it turns out, this happens to a lot of people, so it’s my duty to educate all of you.

When you meet someone new, there is one very simple thing that you should never, ever do: constantly blow up his or her phone every hour on the hour, sending your soliloquy in five separate text messages all at once with a bunch of emojis and happy faces. Your façade of “cool, calm and collected” has now burned to the ground. You have officially become the person who gets a screenshot of your conversation sent to the best friend (or the sex columnist) with the caption, “wtf do I do?!”

I know that new relationships are hard. I know that talking to other people can be scary. I know what it feels like to have a relentless crush on someone and not know how to cope, but I can tell you that it will eventually go away — someone buy me a shot! I finally got over Matt! The truth is most people have a type and, for many of us, the main prerequisite for people we want in our lives, either sexually or romantically, is confidence. A lack of confidence can blow you right out of the fuck-zone, past the friend-zone and right into the people-who-we-blatantly-avoid-zone.

The first step to confidence is recognizing that there is a person out there for you — but you cannot expect it to be anyone specific and blame him or her when they aren’t that person. And if you get angry at them for it, they will instantly decide that you are a needy asshole!

This rule applies to everyone, and as much as I try to refrain from ranting, here’s a little metaphorical knee to the nutsack for anyone who’s ever done this or might ever do this to another person.

Before you think it’s OK to yell at someone for having plans with other people instead of you, learn to accept the fact that the person you are harassing is so far out of your league that any sort of sexual conduct between the two of you would have gotten them arrested for pedophilia! Why? Because you and your slew of aggressive text messages that switch between yelling, calling names and begging for a chance to talk again is along the same emotional wrecking-path as a goddamn toddler!

How’s that for fucking nice?

Anneliese Hucal studies public relations and prelaw. She can be reached at sself@sagebrush.unr.edu.