Texting and Dating

(Ed. Note: this was originally written a month and a half ago. The personal aspect was no longer applicable as of mid-November).

I must be getting old.

I remember a time when the process went like this: guy meets girl and strikes up conversation. Guy asks for Girl’s number, which she gives to him. Guy calls Girl, and after an appropriate (but varying) amount of phone conversations, they go out together. After an appropriate (but varying) amount of dates, they figure out what they want to do - if anything.

Now, I’ve written a lot about how I feel the process should change. All that said, the process is the process and I’d be foolish to think that any individual process would stray too much from the generalization spelled out above.

Now here’s the funny thing: texting seems to have changed the game.

I’m in the early stages of the process with two women at the moment. Both have stated a preference for texting (and FB messages, in the case of the first) as opposed to audio conversation. Now, this is cool in a way because it does allow me to not miss too much of any sporting events I like to watch. At the same time, it’s bad for two reasons. One is ideal, the other is practical.

First reason: I would hope that someone who is interested in me would want to be “important” enough for me to decide to break away from the football game or the baseball game or WWE Raw or whatever else. I don’t think…well, I know with me…you can’t be important (yes, there’s a difference between this usage of the word and the one found above in this paragraph - that’s why this one isn’t in quotes) without wanting to be important. If I don’t think you want to be a priority, you won’t be one: plain and simple. Whether you choose to make me a priority won’t even matter.

Speaking of making me a priority, the second reason: I wasn’t born yesterday. This texting thing is a way of keeping men (or at least me) in line. How sew, you ask? Well, if you call someone you’re asking for a higher level of attention than you are if you text them. Conversations take a lot of work: you have to actually listen to the person, be interested in what they’re saying, and say interesting things to them. You also have to pay constant attention. You don’t have to do that texting. You can answer someone an hour later. Because of this, you take complete control of the conversation as soon as the other person texts you.

This is also true with calls, but moreso with texts because of the attention factor. Waiting for a lot of attention is much different than waiting for a little bit. Waiting for a return call, there’s a lot to consider: the other person may be waiting to get a decent block of time to return your call or might be in a situation in which they can’t answer the phone. Return texting? That can be done in 15-30 seconds. You don’t get one of those, you may go through the “they can’t even do that?” thought process.

There’s also another facet of control at play. If people are texting, it’s much more difficult to get a read on each other. There are almost no cues to pick up on. At least on the phone you can pick up on verbal cues. Now that I think about it…I’ve never known any kind of relationship in which the endgame was texting. “I just want to find someone I can share LOLs with”…um, really? I’m not saying everyone looks for marriage or should look for marriage, but even if you want something sans strings I imagine the end goal would involve seeing the person at least sometimes. Not understanding how text-only gets someone to that goal.

*You know, now I think women would rather everyone have BBM or something so they don’t even have to give out their numbers to text.

In a nutshell, I think this texting thing is part consideration and part control mechanism. Even the control mechanism part is alright in a way: as stated above, you’ll never become a priority if you don’t choose to be one. If you don’t choose to have the other person pay sufficient attention to you, you don’t have much room to wonder why you’re not getting it. If you don’t want it, let the person know. Save time.

Now, here’s the odd thing about it all. I’m not a phone person by any stretch of the imagination. To be perfectly honest, in a vacuum I much prefer texting/online conversation to the verbal variety. However, there are three people who I can be on the phone with for hours: my two best female friends and my mom. It’s nothing for me to be on the phone with them for 3-4 hours or longer. I may miss the game. I may miss Raw. That’s perfectly fine. They’ve decided they’re worth that much of my attention, and they get it partly because of the regard with which I hold them. Anyone who wants to be held in similar regard may want to take notice.