If you’re a woman with an Instagram account, you’re probably all too familiar with the experience of having strange men try and slide into your DMs. Although not all DM-ers are creeps (an acquaintance of mine met her amazing partner by sliding into his DMs) for the most part, these messages are unwanted and the reaction that accompanies them is usually, “Ugh, this again?” Well, ladies, it gets worse.

Enter Tindstagramming: The act of sneaking into someone’s Instagram DMs after failing to match with them on Tinder.

If you’re not familiar with Tinder, it works something like this: you’re presented with a photo of a potential match and you either swipe left (“nope”) or right (“yes”) to match with them. The beauty of the app is that someone can only message you if you’ve both swiped right on each other’s profiles. If you’re a woman, this is appealing because (in theory) it reduces the number of unwanted, creepy messages from people you don’t want to talk to. While creepiness is still always a possibility, this added feeling of control is one of the reasons many women enjoy the app. Tindstagramming happens when a person – usually a man – decides to go rogue, by leaving the app and taking his creepy DMs to Instagram.

Since April 2015, Tinder has provided a feature where users can connect their Instagram accounts. Prior to this, Tinder was virtually anonymous, in the sense that you only were required to give a first name and photos, therefore reducing the likelihood that you’d ever find a person outside of the app (unless of course, you run into them in real life and do a double take because you recognize them from their Tinder profile #truestory.) However, connecting your Instagram on Tinder changes all that. While there’s definitively advantages to adding your Insta (it gives you a chance to show more of your personality and interests than the mini Tinder bio allows,) revealing your social media also opens you up to Tindstagramming and other potential safety issues.

Instead of taking no for an answer, people are now copying down user’s Instagrams before they swipe left or right and then messaging failed matches on Instagram. It’s basically the textbook definition of overstepping boundaries and here’s why it needs to stop.

The rules are in place for a reason.

As mentioned above, one of the reasons women feel comfortable using apps like Tinder is precisely because of how they’re set up: matches have to be mutual in order to pass ‘go.’ One of the easiest ways to make a woman regret joining the app in the first place is to sidestep the exact rules that give her a modicum of control and safety. If you don’t respect the basic rules of an app, what else are you going to disrespect?

This isn’t why she added her Instagram.

Tinder profiles aren’t exactly set up to provide a complete sketch of who someone is as a person. However, adding Instagram to your profile can help bridge that gap. Being able to check out someone’s Instagram and see that you share a lot of common interests (ie. taking photos of tacos on a regular basis) is often the winning swing vote on whether I’m interested or not. I include my Instagram for the same reason – in hopes that someone will see it and realize that I’m not just a random sex object, but rather, a complex human being that enjoys reading books and taking photos of tacos. Please respect this.

She doesn’t want to talk to you. Why are you reaching out?

We swiped left on your profile because we weren’t interested and didn’t want to have to inevitably reject your advances at a later point in time. Why are you interested in talking to someone who made it clear they don’t want to talk to you? Have some self-respect and focus your energy on wooing people who swiped right and are interested in getting to know you.

It makes you look like a douche.

It’s a dick move, simple as that.  When you slide into a woman’s DMs, even though you haven’t been matched together, it shows you don’t respect her ability to make her own decisions and say no. As women, we have to fight to have our consent and personal space respected – and frankly, it can be exhausting. Please don’t add to our grievances. Stay out of our DMs, because no always means no.