Does anyone know the feeling you get when it has been three hours since you sent the last text to the person you like and you’ve received no response? At this point, you are questioning if their feelings for you still exist. A rush of ideas and scenarios enter your brain as to why they aren’t responding and your worries escalate. Approximately 20 minutes later, you receive a text message in which the person you like gives an explanation for his or her absence from the conversation. After reading this text, you feel foolish for letting your mind drift to such extremities and realize that you read way too much into text messages.
Unfortunately, for the majority of us, this pattern will repeat itself. On numerous occasions, I’ve seen people of both genders get emotional due to the fact that the opposite sex failed to reply or send them a smiley face. This is not healthy! If we are going to be an emotionally stable generation, we need to learn how to interact with the opposite sex in a face-to-face manner and maintain emotional stability when texting each other.
It’s safe to say that this generation has been defined by technology. We are consumed with our phones and we have defined our dating relationships by our technological interaction — specifically in the form of texting. When my parents were in high school 20 years ago, couples communicated by talking on the phone every few days and by interacting at their local high school. In that time, if a man had an attraction to a girl, he would suck it up and ask her on a date in person rather than another form of communication.
If you fast-forward 20 years, you see a totally different picture. In our current state, relationships form during a texting conversation rather than in a personal setting. This fad is incredibly alarming because it makes us question if the person we’re seeing in the text messages is the same person typing them.
You see, texting allows the person with whom you are talking to greatly exaggerate their personality, take time to respond and carefully craft an answer that would make them appear more appealing. For example, if I am taking the time to get to know a girl over text message, I could build myself up to be “perfect,” then leave her incredibly disappointed when we go on our first date. Countless times, I have seen my friends face this harsh reality because their first dates weren’t as “perfect” as they had imagined. Every single one of these accounts is because the person didn’t live up to their “texting identity.”
Our methods of communication are going to build standards for us that no person is capable of meeting. If we are going to build relationships that are emotionally stable and realistic, we must drift away from electronic communication and focus more on intimate time in person.
