Text Dating

Is anyone else even a little bit uncomfortable with the amount of text messaging that goes into the initiation of dating someone these days? I think I might be a bit of a fuddy duddy*, and it's not like I have anything to be nostalgic about: despite being a teenager in the pre-cell phone days, I never really dated at all until cell phones and text messaging were already ubiquitous.

Anyways, I get why it's so prevalent: texting is way less scary than a phone call. I mean, making real phone calls barely ever happens these days anyways. Despite totally resisting and hating text messages for years, when I finally buckled and got unlimited texting including in my cell plan, my ratio of airtime vs. text messaging flipped. I went from using over 1,000 minutes a month to 300-500, and easily go through hundreds of texts. At this point, just phoning a friend feels like kind of a big deal, let alone phoning a potential date.

Still, I feel very strongly that text messaging shouldn't be used for conversation, at least not with someone that you don't really know. Someone you're trying to woo. If you're nailing down plans or trying to find each other in a crowd, then yes! Text away! If you want to send a little "hey I had fun last night" note without launching an entire conversations, then go for it.

In fact, the times I feel good about using texts for an ongoing conversation are as follows:
-Someone lives long-distance and you're keeping in touch in real time
-You are already close friends or in an actual "romantic relationship" and are bored/need to talk about something but one of you is in a situation where you can't actually talk

Otherwise, text me for a purpose and then let's get on with our lives.

All this to say, DUDES: think before you text! What are you trying to do? If it's chit-chatty in the least, just call her. If that's too scary or something you don't want to do, then maybe don't call or text her until you have a concrete reason or are willing to talk.

Also, please take the time to write complete words. Or if you can't do that then at least spell the words you do include properly. Believe it or not, we do judge you based on that, and if you can't be bothered to spell a word correctly in a text to me, then I'm going to assume you can't be bothered to do other things correctly with me. Just sayin'.

*Okay, I know I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy.

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