The Kiss of Text: How Texting Totaled My Relationship in 2 Months Flat
It began innocently enough. We reconnected on Facebook. Dived into dining, dating, and dancing. Then things took a nosedive.
Social Media and Texting Should be the Foreplay not the Floor Show or Main Event.
Texting started replacing our conversations and face time. Then texting progressed into sexting. Our threads grew longer and conversations shorter. The more we texted the less I felt and yet couldn’t put my thumb on it. My thumbs were too busy trying to keep up with Big Tex Texter doing the digital dialogue dance that I thought was the norm these days.
I playfully kept firing texts back in hopes of getting to hear that deep voice, feel the heat of his breath against my ear, or at least to get to put another hard object in my hand other than my G4. But what I finally received was weak and flaccid.
He text-lashed me for my typos and incoherent blunders. I retaliated by giving him the no-text treatment for his time-lapsed responses that made no sense whatsoever and smelled of multi-women texting. Accusations and grammatical barbs flew. Then I paid the biggest price of all.
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Texting Penalties Thrown
My Verizon bill arrived. I was being penalized for grossly surpassing my texting limit. I was a novice, light-weight texter before this star-crossed love affair. Or should I say *69 love affair, because our attempt at dating was so tech dependent I didn’t know whether to call my shrink or customer support when I was ready to pull the plug on my iPhone.
As a professional communicator by trade, I should have known the sterility of text-dominate dating was the kiss of death for any serious relationship among human primates who depend on five senses to connect. Groping a tiny electronic device to get a read on the vibe of your man that evening is like expecting watching 60 minutes to create the same response as watching a good porn flick.
Ironically, language is unique to humans and something we’re putting at risk if we continue to bury our faces in our phones rather than something more pleasurable.
Eleven billion text messages are being sent per second every day. Human communication is deteriorating. Adults are sending around 10 texts a day and teenagers around 50. Big Tex Texter and I were adults turning into teenagers and I’m embarrassed to say rather than reeling back, like an addict, I double downed.
Texting is the new cancer of courtship.
I upgraded to the next bigger text bundle and allowed our text dependency to chip away at the weak foundation of our relationship even more. What happened next was unthinkable.
The Ultimate Power Play: Using Texts as Ammo
When our relationship was on its last text, he began using our texts and time stamps as ammo to win arguments. “As you can clearly see I reached out to you at such and such time repeatedly while you chose to remain out of contact.” PLS. That really got me Poed (pissed off).
“Texts are perfect for manipulation,” says Sherry Turkle, a psychologist in the program in Science, Technology, and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We can create anxiety because it’s so intimate.”
The Kiss of Text
Big Tex Texter was a great guy, but I can read between the texts loud and clear – 2BZ4UQT. I rarely got the CICU (can I see you) and only twice the CIP (cell it please).
Real d8s (dates) dried up. I’ll spare you the deets (details). I never got the 143 (I love you). I just got the TTTT (too tired to talk). Now it’s 2FB (too freaking bad) because it’s over.
So what began gloriously online, ended gorily via email. At least we’re not alone, 30% in an iPhone and Android app survey said they’d been dumped by a text; 31% adults say the prefer text as primary communications; and 65% of adults say they sleep with their phone by or in their bed. Yikes. TMI.
If you want to do something this weekend, call me. I know it’s old-fashioned, but conversation really turns me on.
********
So, do tell. Is your love life being boosted by texting or do you wish your partner would shut the phone off and work on your buttons instead?
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Category: Men & Dating
I channel Dharma, Meg Ryan and Erma Bombeck while helping boomers find their groove and mojo. Light some incense, drink wine, bang your drum and love this part of your life with all your soul. It's time to shake you Boho bon bons honey.
So True! I can type on computers very well (thanks to that high school class!)-but am reduced to one-finger pecking on the iphone-I hate that, therefore I hate texting!! This does not make for good connecting in my book-give me an old-fashioned phone call any time! Tone & context become lost in the text world, and I want to hear a voice, not the annoying sound of an incoming text!!!
Intimacy. The method revealed the madness, is all.
Tim is taking the devil’s advocate stance on this one because I totally… disagree. As with any form of communication, having the right partner on the other end makes a huge difference in the success of the dialogue that takes place. It took time and a few miscues to learn how to have an intriguing and intimate phone conversation with early girlfriends. The process has been very similar in adopting how to successfully weave texting and im’ing into a relationship. Personally, I feel it can serve as a great ‘staying in touch’ mechanism in-between times of being able to see or talk to one another at greater length. Done correctly and with maturity, I think it’s really quite pleasant to send out or receive quick notes and even enter into lengthier dialogue (IF convenient and following standard rules of etiquette or safety) when other methods of communicating might not be suitable. The world of technology is rapidly changing the way we interact with one another. What cell phones can do today is mind-boggling. My plan is to learn and adapt to these new methods, websites or applications. Going back to my earlier analogy – just because I had some uncomfortable experiences talking on the phone with a few early girlfriends, that didn’t translate into completely giving up that tool of interaction altogether. Like anything else I’ve gotten good at, it just took some trial and (unfortunately) error along the way.
Thanks for sharing your text-relationship story. Liked the translation of terms under “The Kiss of Text” because I don’t know text langauge.
Thanks for kind comment. Glad you liked it. Let me know if you have any midlife subjects you’d like to read about so I can add them to my to-do list!
I am the author of “Text. Love. Power.: The Ultimate Girls Relationship Guide for Texting and Dating in the New Millennium” — available on Amazon.
This scenario happens all too frequently with relationships that start and end over text. It’s why I recommend that women who are not achieving results actually stop texting all together. Sometimes, it’s just best to not text and see whether a man is willing to call.
Thanks for letting us know this scenario is becoming all too common. I wish I would have had he common sense to stop and either have real conversations or none at all. I look forward to checking out your book.