On my list of things that need to stop, right up there with ‘spitting’ and ‘toothpaste residue in the sink,’ sits the textual relationship.
An occasional, ‘Hi you,’ or ‘Thinking of you,’ text is okay coming from your boyfriend or someone you’re in a pseudo-relationship with. What’s not okay is texting with no specific purpose other than to make sure I’m still on your list of possible chicks to call at 4 AM.
For some reason, a breed of men (and maybe women too) has emerged who just want to be in a texting relationship. To be clear, this means they never actually want to see you. They just want to engage in very lengthy, flirtatious, hopefully witty, banter with you via their cellular device. These textual engagements can be so long that they often feel like an actual date, except that you have miles of stratosphere between you instead of a restaurant’s table.
The serial texters favorite phrase to text is ‘I miss you.’ When this becomes a staple, you have to point out to them that you guys aren’t reenacting the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Fascinatingly enough, you can actually SEE each other whenever you want.
See, if I wanted to be in a long-distance relationship, if never seeing the person I was flirting with was how I liked to roll, I’d virtually date someone in Japan. There’s no reason for two healthy adults living in the same city with multiple transportation options such as cabs, quick subway rides, and razor scooters available to them, to sit in their respective apartments texting away until the wee hours of the morning while it would be so much easier, enjoyable, and restful for your thumbs to meet up face-to-face.
I think texting fiends are operating under the impression that by engaging in superfluous and lengthy text messaging with you, they’re showing they care. The reality is they’re wasting my time and inflicting serious pain on my Cingular texting plan. If you cared, you wouldn’t text sweet nothings to me for hours on end. You do something called “removing your ass from your chair,” and come see me, or make concrete plans to see me, or show up at my house with flowers and a trumpet with which you’d serenade me to some fantastic ‘80s song. That’s called “devotion.” Being extremely nifty with a cellular keypad – so nifty that you’re probably able to conduct these “loving” textual conversations with half a dozen other women – is not.
P.S. What ever happened to calling?
A textual relationship with no intention of taking it to the next level is seriously wrong. Not only that, it’s time-consuming, especially as you’ll hurt your mind trying to think of ways to take the textual conversation in an actual direction leading to (gasp!) a phone call or date. Don’t bother over-thinking responses or composing clever texting quips. I speak from experience when I tell you that once you’ve identified a textual relationship culprit, they’re never going to actually ask you out. Text or call you at three in the morning? Yes. Actually make an effort to see you? Never.
At the end of the day, judge your partner on their actions, not on their ability to mass spam you (and most likely others) with sweet texts.
[Photo Credit: GeekSugar.com]
February 20th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Surprising, i thought girls were the ones who love texting. I have the feature removed from my phone now, and always notice this frustrated look on a girl’s face when i say ‘my phone doesn’t have txting, so if you want to talk call’ I’m clearly meeting the wrong ones. . .
March 10th, 2009 at 11:31 am
AMEN!
I’m in a textual relationship and while its frustrating I’m also part of the problem.