We've heard it all before:
"He didn't put an 'x' at the end of his text"
"He called me 'mate'"
"He said 'love ya', not 'love you'"
"He said 'see you soon', but how soon is soon? When will I see him again? Who's court is the ball in?"
"He hasn't text me yet. We had a great connection. Why hasn't he text me?"
"He text me! Right, so now I have to wait at least nineteen hours to reply. Yeah?"
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
It's a conversation that we've all had with at least one of our girlfriends (no porkies - you know it's true!).
We try to figure out the subtext of his text, the emotion behind every 'x', the meaning behind each emoticon (is that a sexy or constipated face?).
And as a writer, (and a girl, obvz) I have been seriously guilty of deconstructing texts from boys. To me, the written word is full of purpose, meaning, intent. I spend my days crafting words. Words are a big fucking deal. The wrong word can be the nail in the coffin at your appraisal, can give an immediate bad impression in a job interview, can upset a friend or family member in seconds. If your friend asks you if she looks fat, the difference between the teeny tiny words: 'yes', 'no', 'maybe', is astonishing.
Words are KEY.
And that's why it becomes so easy to over-think, over-worry, and over-analyse. We can't read his mind, but we can read his text.
In reality, however, he's probably not taking a time-out in the toilet to read and re-read your message in order to craft the perfect reply which spans witty, casual, flippant, interested, cute, sexy and intriguing. He's probably just on the bus, or with his mum, or at the pub, or playing Playstation.
So let's all chill out. Sure, we can spend time writing a nice little response. Ask our mates for their input. But as soon as you start outlining a time frame in which to reply, or judging an entire relationship on one strand of text communication, you're in dangerous territory.
I'm really interested in hearing from you guys on this - girls/boys, are you guilty of any of the above?
Have done this SO many times. I now simply text a guy back if I get the text, I want to respond, and I have the time to. The only thing I now read into is lack of a question - if there's no content to respond to he probably doesn't care too much if you respond.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm most guilty of is freaking THE FUCK OUT when I don't get a text back in an acceptable amount of time, assuming he must have gone off me, or met someone else or simply doesn't like me then ill wonder what I've done, and consider texting him again. Then I'll delete his number specifically so I CAN'T text him again so he has to text me first.
ReplyDeleteThen what often happens is there's a completely logical explanation as to why he hasn't text me. So I've spent a full day going bat shit over nothing.
Oh my god. Guilty! I've been with my boyfriend for 4 years and I STILL get angry when he says "love ya" instead of "I love you"... and if there's one too few kisses, then all hell will break loose. Girls definitely need to take this advice on board!
ReplyDeletex
I agree with you. The amount of times I've over analysed texts not just from men but women too. We care too much about quick texts now instead of picking up the phone where we can hear the tone of someones voice and KNOW something is up.
ReplyDeleteI try to avoid texting my boyfriend unless its to say "Do you want a take-away tonight" ^_^
http://painttheukpink.blogspot.co.uk
Wendy x
The main one I always fall victim to is making sure I take ages to reply to a text. I usually base it on how long they take to reply to me. If it's been 2 hours, then I'm going to make them wait 2 hours as well! I've battled with this idea many times before, because really I should just text back when I want, even if that is right away. So sometimes I've then done just that, but waited 5 hours for a reply. I think the main worry is that your coming across as too eager or desperate, especially if they don't seem too fussed about replying to you very quickly. You can just imagine him getting your reply and saying to his friends "Bloody hell she's replied ALREADY. She's so clingy". I mean obviously you don't want to give that impression, because you don't need no man and he needs to work for you! Even though your counting down the minutes until it's socially acceptable for you to reply to his text.
ReplyDeleteOh so complicated.
Wasted so much time and anxiety on this myself in the past... but I've finally come to realise, it means NOTHING! Boys don't read into this stuff whatsoever, hence when they text us, they don't expect us to read into it either. Take it at face value and save yourself a lot of stress over nothing!
ReplyDeleteI just think the whole thing's a waste of time. You wouldn't play silly games if you were in a face-to-face conversation, so why do it with text messages, emails etc? I'm a bloke, and I'd take a pretty dim view of any of my male friends who deliberately fucked a girl about with this.
ReplyDeleteJust reply when you want to, and say what you want to say.
Hi everyone, second time commenter, I'm the guy who Madison interviewed about their foot fetish.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, men do this too. Or at least I do and some of my friends. Started in a jokey way at Uni, "Oh she didn't add an X at the end of the text" or "she has taken ages to reply" I think it's natural if you like someone and after all getting that instant gratification of new information/news/text from someone is really exciting and we get addicted to it. Sure there was a study I read about receiving texts and how it effects same parts of our brain as when we gamble and have sex.
Anyway, I don't do this as much any more, unless I'm sex texting and I want a reply ASAP!
Oh and if you have a foot fetish! Get in contact... ;)
Great blog as always Madison
This is why actually speaking with someone is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are always circumstances where texting is more appropriate. If you're somewhere you need to keep silent, for example. Text messages can often be sexier than a 10 second phone call, too. But the thing to remember is that tone cannot be judged when reading something.
Tone is everything. It's not just the words. You can say the exact same text in different ways and mean completely different things. So don't judge! If something is bothering you that much, speak to the person, but the chances are they didn't mean it in the way you thought they did anyway.
I'm always very careful with what I write as I'm aware it's all too easy for things to be misconstrued. This comment, for example, could be taken the wrong way. It would be easy to think I'm being condescending or patronising, when I don't mean to be at all.
I also think there are a lot more things to take into account these days. Certainly a lot more than when I was in my early twenties about 15 years ago. Texting was around but not the big thing it is now. Facebook didn't exist. A couple of years before that and people didn't even have mobile phones. As a late teen I had to ring people on landline phones if I wanted to contact them at all. A few of my friends had email addresses but nobody really checked them that often in those days. Maybe once a day or so.
These days online social media makes it easier to hook up with people but there are so many more factors that need to be accounted for. I was chatting to a good friend of mine recently. He's 16 and apparently his relationship with his girlfriend is "official, but not Facebook official". He also has to take more care when out and about because everybody these days has a mobile phone with a decent camera on it. Any shenanigans on a night out and it'll be on Facebook within 5 mins and his parents will see it. When I was young you could get away with a lot more and there certainly wouldn't be any photographic evidence that existed.
I'm not complaining as I think this kind of technology is brilliant. But you need to be human about things and, when possible, give people the benefit of the doubt :-)
Andy
A male perspective; from a male who is essentially replying to a girls message whilst eating dinner with one hand and an eye on grand designs... Also my first response to a blog, but hey it's 2013, and this is exactly where i'm going with this...
ReplyDeleteGone are the days when we had to buy a £10 top up voucher for our Sony Erricsson phone from the local shop, and painstakingly type out messages on mobile phones with real buttons and primitive predictive text messaging.
These days information is thrown at us all day long, the vast majority of which usually expects an instant response. In the office we are emailed by clients expecting answers straight away, managers wanting an update ASAP, and friends asking if we are going to the pub on Thursday. And with office instant messaging and mobile email becoming more commonplace, being in constant communication with everyone is only getting worse.
Outside of the workplace, with the widespread use of Whatsapp and IMessage, we no longer have to consider how much we are texting. And with smartphones allowing a full keyboard, text conversations with our friends, families, and obviously women, are becoming more like instant messaging than texting of the era when Nokia's Snake occupied the bus journey home.
These days a swift response is if not expected, the norm. And I'd suggest that it certainly wouldn't be judged. And the result of a conversation that is moving at a normal pace - were not going to read too much into what she meant by she 'liked' the night out we had etc.
Maybe this is far too clinical, but the opinion of a no-nonsense bloke, with increasingly less time, and a phone which seems to be increasingly glued to my hand for one reason or another!
X (just the one)
I agree, guys definitely do this as well. I remember when I was seeing a girl and she was a bit of a drama queen and I remember pacing up and down at work thinking about what she 'meant' in her texts. It drove me wild.
ReplyDeleteMy friend told me that you can't think for the other person. There is no way you can definitively 'know' what they were thinking so why causes yourself distress by trying to 'think' for them.
I now just take a text for what it is and don't 'read into it'.