Less than a couple years ago, I discovered text messaging. I was late for that fad, as I typically am with trended fare. But once I came to and saw the light of the the text message's beauty, I was hooked. I texted all my friends. I lavished in opportunities to meet people and put their numbers in my phone, if only I could text them. I took more time than I would ever admit to construct my messages just so, particularly if sent to men I was attracted to. I called my provider and opted for the unlimited package. I played games that people ridiculously play, whereby they 'pretend' they are busier than they are, and sit on messages for hours or days, just to appear to be 'aloof' or 'unavailable'. Why anyone would do this, I have no idea; I'm certainly not sure why I did.
But to be sure, I did. I became part of the text culture. And eventually, texting became an obsession, until it led to utter frustration. What did this text mean from he or she (usually he, as men tend to get under my skin more than women; I'm heterosexual and sexual, go figure). Why would he take so long to write back? Why didn't he write back? Why did he say that and nothing else? Why can't we sit here for hours and text each other back and forth? Why why why?
Certain nights, I distinctly recall sitting on my favorite red, plaid chair in my apartment, staring back and forth between my laptop screen, and my cellular. Why doesn't anyone write? Why didn't he (whoever he happened to be at the time) write back? It was a sickness, I finally realized. And furthermore, despite the fact that I'm a writer, with a passion for expression through written words (probably what drew me into texting in the first place), such a sickness well, sickened me.
Through text messaging (first it was emails, and now in ways, it's still emails), we have been overtaken by a preoccupation with brevity. We don't explore what's in our souls. We think: 'I don't feel like calling him/her back, why not shoot a text?' But even worse, we think: 'Why even bother to text, it's just a text?' It's sad, very sad.
Because at times, the older I get and the more I realize how precious life is, the more I crave a good vis-a-vis talk. The more I miss times when, as in college or high school, I would talk on the phone for hours of the night. I would laugh and squeal and delight in the inflections of the voice on the other line. I felt connected. But though text messages are forms of communication, we have gone to the extreme (as we often do), and have replaced such ability to be short and to the point for a good phone chat, or a drink maybe, or dinner.
We're not like Anna Karenin in Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina'. If she longed to see her lover, Vronsky, she would send him a letter (long hand, imagine!) and plea for him to come to her (in person). What happened to such intimacy? The text message is so informal and its contents so ambiguous and slippery and lifeless. I prefer something I can sink my teeth into. A hug, a smile over two coffees, my family at the dinner table, or cooing on an L-shaped couch over the newest baby in our clan. These are things that matter. Text messages, for me, I'm happy to say, have become 'passe'. Yes, it's true. I'm on to the next big thing.
Next time I meet someone interesting, I won't ask him for his cell number, and in a giddy way, add it into my phone right in front of his eyes, telling him I'll call the number so that he will have me in his phone too. No no no. Instead, I think I might say: 'Can I have your street address?' Maybe I'll send him a letter by the ink of my favorite pen, and invite him out to a Sunday brunch.
May the text get sick and die.
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