I may be the worst texter in the history of forever. The way I think leads me down a dark, dark path when it comes to texting. I tend to overthink things. And by "things" I mean everything. Instead of going with the flow of a verbal conversation, a text message allows me to sit back and articulate my thoughts. For me, this turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing. Texting to me is akin to an extreme sport. It wears down your body and requires acute focus and the right mentality.
A typical example of my texting procedure is as followed:
After deciding on the content of a message a message, I type it out, just like anyone else. But at this point, simple hitting "send" is not a option. There are a multitude of additional checks that my message must pass before I dare send it. I will sit there and edit it over and over again. The words must flow perfectly. The meaning must be unable to be misconstrued. My attempts at humor must not suck. The text must be an appropriate length. And after summoning the courage to send the text, due to my inability to not overthink, there is approximately a 90% chance that I believe that I failed on all accounts. And then all I have left is the prayer that what I sent wasn't the worst thing ever to be documented. If I were to die right then and there, do I want my final words to be from a poor text message?
If I've ever had a text conversation with you, I guarantee that you were on the receiving end of a similar scenario.
A few weeks ago I saw an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted attempts to text his latest girl which immediately reminded me of my internal struggle:
"I started things off with something cute and charming: "I was thinking about you, so I thought I'd send you a little texty text". And the moment I hit 'send', I realized, it wasn't cute at all. It was the lamest thing anyone has ever sent to anyone. And the worst thing about texting is that once you send it, you can never get it back."
Right in the feels. And he's right. You can never get it back. It's out there for the NSA to mock forever. Therefore, the saga continues...
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