You’ve probably already found yourself in this situation at work: you’ve emailed your boss and you thought you were being silly, but they took it the wrong way. Yikes. And it then took you many hours to finally explain yourself, only to make you gun shy about saying anything witty in an email ever again.

So when it comes to online flirting, what can you do to ensure you’re not offending anyone, yet still being cool and seductive?

Make sure you’re rereading what you send to someone – Those notes that you send off spontaneously are the ones that will get you in the most trouble. Read and reread what you’re sending before you push that send button.

Even better, have someone else read it – If you have a friend that you trust, have them read the email as well. They’ll be able to tell you if you need to reword something or if you need to strike something completely out of the email itself.

Use email ’softeners’ – That’s right, you have full permission to use smiley faces and ‘ha ha’ to make sure anything that’s supposed to be funny comes across as funny. ‘Just kidding’ is another good way to make sure your intentions are clear.

Be overly flirtatious – You could also take the route of being overly flirtatious by using cheesy pick up lines and lovey dovey quotes. This way, the other person will laugh to themselves, knowing the meaning, but not really knowing if you mean it or if you don’t….mysterious person that you are.

Practice, practice, practice – Chances are good that even if you do follow this advice, you’re going to run into troubles and mess up from time to time. Instead of beating yourself up over flirting mistakes, learn from them.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a rule book that came along with your online dating membership? Remember that when flirting online, getting hit on three times means that you should go on a date with the prospective suitor. Calling before the next date seems needy, etc.

But there isn’t a rule book. You simply figure out what you need to do along the way.

There are three simple rules that you should follow if you want to not only be successful in your online dating, but to also be a popular person to hook up with:

1. Be open to everyone – This is not the time to be picky. Give everyone a chance, but dismiss those that don’t appeal to you.

2. Take a chance – You will need to meet people IRL (in real life) after a while. Be the one to make that date and to follow through on seeing if you have chemistry in the real world too.

3. Realize that someone is out there – If you’re automatically assuming that no one is going to suit you, you’re right. But if you keep in mind that there is someone out there looking for someone like you, you’re right too.

Okay, other rules that I think are pretty obvious? Be clean, brush your teeth, and NEVER be late to a date. But you already knew these, right? Right?