Texting is for the Birds

“The way to a woman’s heart is not through a text message.” 

That is my facebook status today and I have gotten a lot of feedback, so I thought I’d expound. In an age with texting, social media, and interactive games with instant messaging features, it’s no wonder landline phones are the dinosaurs of communication. It used to be that, in the realm of dating and courtship, a first date was often preceded by an initial, preliminary phone call to establish interest and typically set up plans for a first date. A successful first date was followed up by another call, more dates and so forth. These days, text messaging has become front and center making dating, in my opinion, less classy. Do I look like a court stenographer? If I wanted to spend my days and nights typing, I’d get another job for it and date a nice lawyer.

~P.S. If anyone knows any nice, single lawyers out there, send him my way...

I digress. Honestly, how many times have you met someone and the next contact is a bland text message? It’s even more aggravating when s/he initiates with a vague and short message of “Hey” and you have to go through a couple extra texts just to find out who is the mystery texter. I make it a point to tell a potential suitor that continual texting is not how I roll. I didn’t take public speaking courses and get a degree in English to not “use my words.” Texting can be impersonal, unemotional, and misleading. Texting between friends is one thing, but when you’re trying to establish a deeper connection with someone, texting is not the way to go. Though I’ve made my dislike of texting clear in the beginning, most recently, guys I’ve dated started off strong with the calling and “wanting to hear my voice” to dropping into an inability to press “call” rather than “send message.” (Destiny Child’s song “Say My Name” comes to mind at this point even more so.) When texts start to be more frequent than time spent with your partner and addressing it doesn’t seem to phase him or change anything, it’s time to get out. Now, I am a huge fan of sweet, random, affectionate text messages, especially during work hours. However, I and many others are not fans of texting becoming someone’s sole means of communicating with a partner.

The point where you know our society has an unhealthy obsession with texting is when people have no qualms about breaking up with someone via a text message. That is the lowest form of disrespect, cowardice, and heartlessness. (Especially when it’s a break up because of that person’s cheating and / or lies.)