Thursday night, 6:36 PM. I'm furiously firing off emails, playing that game with myself where I can't leave the office until my inbox is in a manageable state. My cell buzzes and my heart cinches. Aidan. No, it's not a national holiday. And he already texted me a happy birthday two weeks ago. This must be it. The text I've been waiting for--the one that will open the line of communication between us. He misses me. He's wondering how I'm doing. I wave my hand over the iPhone, the screen transforms, and I focus my eyes to read...that he...has a new phone number...he's telling me to update my contacts?...he...has just...mass...texted me? After the initial "what the fuck?" moment, my blood pressure comes down about 400 notches and I'm breathing normal again. After all, there's nothing to have butterflies about now. False alarm.
Temporarily paralyzed, I sat there for a few minutes before returning back to my inbox. A realization was sinking in. Aidan had no concept of what had transpired for me in the last minute in a half. The exhilaration, the anxiety, and ultimately the let down; it was all unbeknownst to him. I was just another contact in his phone book, a receiver of the dreaded mass text. Just how many of his ex-girlfriends were thinking the same thoughts at that very moment? I felt bad for all of us. A text that took Aidan 25 seconds to mindlessly type and send, probably at the counter of a Verizon store on the Upper East, took me (and no doubt countless others) a full 25
minutes to analyze.
Once recovered and out of the office, I spent my walk home thinking about context clues. In school I had always scored high in reading comprehension. Give me a paragraph on a standardized test, and I could tell you the underlying message practically at first glance. I could even make an educated guess as to what would happen next in the plot. Yet here I was, 3 years out of college, grappling with the meaning of a 66 character-long text message. I had no clue what would happen next. Before I reached my apartment, I dug deep into the recesses of my "Texts From An Ex" history and realized that Aidan's most recent weapon of mass destruction wasn't the only message I've spent time agonizing over.
Case 1: My Favorite Mistext
After a solid 4 months of dating Abercrombie & Fitch model Stetson my senior year of college, our relationship came to a very abrupt end the day I received what I like to call a mistext--a text unintentionally sent to the wrong person. I was sitting on the beach in Charleston, South Carolina, where I was visiting one of my best friends from high school. Julie was spending the summer waiting tables at a Mexican joint with a bunch of her Boston College friends before heading to Columbia Law in the fall. Of course I took advantage of her summer set up; I flew down to visit her for a few carefree days in the sun. Both of us fresh off the high of college graduation, we were enjoying every minute of our last official summer vacation without real jobs, responsibilities, and college loans.
That day on the beach, I was basking in the glorious glow that only dating a gorgeous model can provide. (Just a month or so earlier, Stetson was featured in a Cosmopolitan Magazine spread...siiighhh...) And then it happened. I received the infamous mistext. My phone chimed and I grinned. Stetson was a flirtatious guy, as any model in New York City would be, and his cute and coy personality came through his text messages. "Hey Sweetie," the text started, normal enough.
But then, the clincher: "I agree, let's make out soon...Plans tonight?"
At first my brain didn't register what my eyes had just read. I actually remember thinking how adorable and sexy he was for sending such a suggestive message in the middle of the afternoon. But then it dawned on me that I hadn't said anything to him that would warrant the phrase: "I agree." What was he agreeing with, I wondered? And did I have plans tonight? He knew that I was in South Carolina. I told him about the trip just days before, at my graduation party that he took a bus from New York City to come to. The graduation party where he met my parents, grandparents, extended relatives, neighbors, and all my closest friends from school. Of course I had plans that night--plans to be 641 miles away in Charleston, South Carolina! What was going on here?? I sat there on the beach and reread the text 17 more times looking for any other explanation. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't arrive at anything but the truth: he didn't mean to send the text message to me, he wanted to make out with someone else, in fact he
planned to make out with someone else, and my relationship with my model was over. I was humiliated and heart broken. Of course I texted him back to let him know that while the offer to "make out soon" was quite enticing, it was very apparent that the message was meant for someone else. Though I would hear from Stetson years later, he never replied to my response that day. He was beautiful, but he wasn't a fool. He wasn't even going to try to deny it. He knew that "sorry" just wouldn't cut it after a mistext like that.
Case 2: Textual Harassment
I met Chase at a bar on Bowery in the late spring of 2009. He had the appeal of someone older and wiser, and the flecked gray hair of a mature gentleman. After a few dates and one particular night of bad decisions, I realized that a gentleman Chase was not. A toxic bachelor to the core, Chase cared about traveling the world, completely free and unattached. He cared about the moody tunes of Ryan Adams and the "Ramblin' Man" vibes of Fleet Foxes. And he cared about remodeling his kitchen in a luxury high-rise apartment so that he could comfortably cook meals for
one with state of the art appliances. What Chase didn't care about was a sweet 20-something girl, fresh out of college, with the innocence and naivete of a girl scout. Around July, Chase stopped returning my calls and texts and faded into oblivion like the rest of the boys before him.
Months went by, seasons changed, and I slowly forgot about Chase. It wasn't until the middle of a blizzard in the bitter cold of January that Chase warmed to the thought of rekindling the old flame. I was cozy and comfortable in my childhood bed in New Jersey, hunkered down as the snow fell steady and fast outside. Around one o'clock in the morning my phone chirped. Foggy from sleep, I had to read the name on the screen three times before I realized I wasn't dreaming.
Years of experience in what I call textual harassment has given me the license to say definitively that a boy (whether he's your boyfriend or not) will send you a text after midnight for one reason and one reason only: to get laid.
If your boyfriend texts you at 2:00 AM to find out what you're up to, he wants to have sex with you. And if you get a text from a long lost asshole asking what you're up to during the middle of a snow storm at 1:00 in the morning, he wants to have sex with you. There is no hidden meaning here. "Hey what r u up to?" always translates to: "Hey, wanna f*ck?" Most of the time this message arrives when you are already in bed, wearing mom-jamas and reading some Jane Austen romance novel (that you've already read on 3 separate occasions). But it's textual harassment, plain and simple. There you are, minding your own business, trying to catch up on beauty sleep or enjoying a Girl's Night Out with your friends when some asshole you've tried to forget about sends a text message that is disguised as a friendly hello, when in reality it's the equivalent of a pervy over-the-shoulder boob graze.
The night Chase texted me, I didn't have the energy to play the game. In the months since he bowed out of my life, I managed to stop caring about him. So, I answered his text message honestly and asked him what I considered to be a very logical question:
"It's one o'clock in the morning. There are six and half inches of snow on the ground. I'm in bed in New Jersey, wearing flannel pajamas that I got in the 6th grade and furry socks with non-slip traction on the bottom. It's a blizzard outside. What are YOU doing?"
He laughed at my text and told me he was at a bar near my apartment in Soho, but that he'd like to see me sometime soon when I was back in town. I turned my phone off and went back to bed. Figured I'd leave him in suspense. I fell asleep with a smile on my face knowing that this schmuck was roaming around the city in the middle of a snowstorm looking for tail. How pathetic.
If you suspect you are the victim of textual harassment, immediately tell your friends. They'll laugh at the perp and make you feel better about yourself, pointing out the fact that you're not half as desperate as they are and probably ten times more attractive. But let the record show that a few weeks after the blizzard booty text, I met Chase for a glass of wine and pizza at OTTO, Mario Batali's restaurant in the Village. We had a nice time catching up, and by the end of night I vowed always to remember him fondly. As a textual harasser and a globe-trotting asshole.
Case 3: The Safe Text
One of my biggest pet peeves about texting is that it makes it all too easy to for us (and by us, I really mean men) to get away with saying something that we ordinarily wouldn't have the balls to say in person or even over the phone. I know I'm not alone in thinking that texting provides a very tangible distance between sender and receiver, so much so that one can easily eliminate the risk of putting one's true self out there simply by texting. From behind the shield of an iPhone or Blackberry screen, just about anyone can send a text without feeling any of the repercussions that might come in its wake. It makes interpersonal communication so much less...personal.
The texts I'm talking about are Safe Texts, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are merely three words long, like: "i luv u."
We'd like to think he meant it when he typed his heart out it in a 5 character text message, but no, dear friend, he did not. A text does not a declaration of love make.
Some are in place of a phone call. As in, the topic of the conversation actually deserves a phone call, and yet a common text message serves to take its place. Like the follow up to a first date, for example. Every gentleman should take the time and effort to phone you after a decent date if he's truly interested. In my book, a safe text follow up is usually the first sign that he's actually
not interested (well, to be fair, he may be interested in one thing. And that thing is getting into your pants). Most importantly to note in this scenario, with a safe text mock-versation, he's setting expectations low so that real full blown phone calls never become a normal part of your relationship. Smart guy, right?
And of course, there are some safe texts are so unique that there's simply no way to describe them, other than in lengthy detail. For example (and here I take a deep breath):
After two and half months of the most torturous drive-by breakup I had ever experienced in my life--two and half months of no communication, no closure, no mature conversations about our relationship or his infidelity--I received the god forsaken safety text from Andrew, an ex that now resides comfortably at the top of my ultimate shit list. In the middle of February, a time when I was still crying myself to sleep at night and having mental breakdowns in the shower every morning, I was desperately pining for some sort of closure and understanding of what I did to deserve such vile treatment from a man I loved. The thought of hearing from Andrew consumed my thoughts. I was obsessed with contemplating the scenarios that would compel him reach out and give me the opportunity to get the answers I needed to move on. So it would only stand to chance that the first afternoon where my thoughts were (almost) everywhere else but on Andrew, that he would text me and digitally pop up from under the rock he was hiding under. I had just stepped out of the shower, getting ready for my first big social outing since Andrew and I broke up. My friend Billy from high school was moving to Charlotte, North Carolina and a group of us were taking him on a good old Irish Bar Crawl in the city, sending him off in the best way we knew how. My phone pinged on my bed and I reached for it without even the slightest thought that it could be...
...but it was. Andrew. I'm sure my heart stopped. I didn't breathe for 3 minutes. I sat down on the edge of the bed clutching my phone. I stood up clutching my phone. I sat back down clutching my phone. I walked into the bathroom, then into the kitchen, then back to my bedroom, holding on to my phone for dear life. I almost didn't want to read what he had to say. But of course curiosity got the best of me.
I wanted to let u know that Aunt Ellen passed away today. I have no one else to tell. You were the only one who knew her. I'm sorry if I bothered u.
I read the text all the way through and read again. I cleared my throat, blinked once or twice, and swallowed. And then, involuntarily, out of pure frustration, I let out a blood curdling scream. I couldn't believe the gall! The nerve! Of all of the things that needed to be said (verbally said, not textually said) between us, he broke the silence with this? News of a dead relative that I met once? And all because
"I was the only one who knew her"? Absolutely not; I called bullshit on that one. I called Julie immediately. Then I called my mom. And then I collected my own thoughts and realized just how shitty Andrew's text really was. It was a Safe Text, all right. Far away in midtown, Andrew could send off his text and not have to hear or see my reaction way down here in my tiny bedroom in Soho when I received it. Even with out a response from me, he could feel some level of comfort in knowing that he relayed a message, that I would read it, and that somewhere out there I was thinking of him. It was safe and it was selfish. His safe text left me little if any opportunity to even acknowledge the pain I was feeling in the aftermath of our breakup. How could I when he played the dead relative card?
Everything I really wanted to say would be inappropriate given the context of Ellen's death and beyond that, what I wanted to say would be much too long for a text message. So while he found comfort in hitting "send", I sat analyzing a text I never wanted to receive.
The disclaimer at the end of Andrew's message really turned the knife in my stomach. "Sorry if I bothered you," he said. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he had included that statement because he knew that his safe text, like most safe texts, would do exactly that.
***
At home in bed the night Aidan sent me his mass text message, I started to realize that this isn't an isolated incident. This isn't just me. There are women all over the world that are being textually harassed and safe texted, mistexted and mass texted. It's the state of the world we live in, as morbid and depressing as that sounds. Think about it: With the recent passing of one of our generation's most innovative thinkers, Steve Jobs, and the latest iteration of the iPhone hitting the market just two weeks ago, everyone's talking upgrades, platforms, and apps. But that's the thing. Are we really
talking? So many conversations are filled with tech-speak and emoticons that actual, meaningful dialogue has fell insignificantly by the wayside.
We've become so excited by the thrill of what technology can do for us that I fear we've forgotten what we can do for each other.
We've become so conditioned by the novelty of technology that we're actually overjoyed when a new gadget takes one of the most defining traits of our culture and humankind--like verbal communication--and turns it into an archaic task that we've managed to render obsolete. Why would we take the time to make a phone call and be labored with the chore of talking to another person when we can just as easily ask them about their life in a 6 letter, 7 character text message: "Wuts up?" In fact, why would we even bother typing the text ourselves and exhaust the slightest energy when we can have our new mobile secretary, Siri, transcribe the message for us? It's frightening to think that our culture finds nothing wrong with the concept of talking to an automated, digital computer chip that transforms our voice into a typed text message devoid of inflections and emotions. We are no longer man and woman, friend and family. We are merely sender and receiver. WTF?
ttyl,
Pretty
