Text Etiquette for the Serial Dater

Sup 2nite? U wanna go 4 drinks?

By K

It’s official. Text messaging is ruining dating.

In all honesty, I completely understand that it’s less pressure to send a text message and get a non-response than to call and have to deal with a person’s voice saying ‘yea-or-nay’, but it’s made the entire process much less personal. It feels a bit corporate, to say the least, if you’re doing more than setting a date.

In which case, let me check my Outlook calendar, I’ll get right “back 2 u.”

Don’t get me started on the lingo. I’m a chronic abbrever (see? Just abbreviated ‘abbreviator.’) and I’m a fan of acronyms, but let’s get serious. If you can’t be bothered to type out an entire word, do you really want to be bothered meeting up later? Have you seen “You Can’t Text Message Break-up“? If you must make texting part of dating, learn some ground rules:

Acceptable:

Message Received at 2:30 PM: Dinner @ 7:45?

Unacceptable:

Message Received at 2:30 AM: What r u up 2?

In case one, we see that the sender is planning ahead and trying to nail down details. This is a great example of how texting can complement dating. Scenario two, however, suggests that the sender is simply attempting to get nailed. It’s lacking in the sincerity and not quite what we want to see… a drunk dial would do the same service. Kudos to sender, however, for feigning nonchalance.

Let’s try another example of how not to text, using an interaction of mine involving one of the last guys I dated… and it solidified that we were going nowhere:

Message Received at 12:30 AM: “Ah! I forgot to call u!”

A few things about this irked me. First and foremost, yes, he did forget to call me. Also, why could he write out ‘to’ and not ‘you’? Explain that bias to me. But mostly, WTF. Why is he texting to say he forgot to call, instead of just (gasp) calling and apologizing? This is a clear indicator that I need to pzz out.

Yeah, I don’t get the need for ‘pzz’ instead of ‘peace’ either. But I’ve seen it. Fact is, you can’t abbreviate a relationship. You need to do the hassle phone call thing because too much is left to interpretation by way of text message.

What if you mis-read something and completely miss the tone that was intended by the sender? I’ve seen relationships go south because of typos, and it’s just ridiculous.

It’s inevitable that we’re all used to convenience and immediate responses, but we need to learn how to use it to our advantage instead of replacing human interaction with it. Send a little “can’t wait 2 see u” or “miss u!” note. Don’t pick a fight via text; pick a time and place for the fight to occur. IN PERSON.

Maybe it’s because I started dating before everyone communicated predominantly through texting, but when it’s done wrong, it completely defeats the purpose. Maybe I just need to lighten up.

Tell us what ‘u’ think about the text revolution.