Textual Manipulation

Maybe it’s just me, but is texting the most manipulative method of communication?

I often long for the days when you had to go home and check your voicemail. Voicemail! And I’m talking see-a-red-numeral-blinking-press-the-button-and-listen voicemail. There is no longer the curiosity of who might be on the other line – will it be your friend trying to determine weekend plans (plans you have to keep and can’t let them know you’re running late or no longer feeling it because life is too much because YOU ONLY HAVE A LANDLINE)? Your mother? Your crush? Swoon. THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW. In Voicemail Era, there is no caller ID, no cell phones, no call waiting. You have to talk to people one at a damn time when you are both home, not throwing off a casual thought while standing in a grocery store line.

Your thoughts. My thoughts. We all have so many. Do each and every one of them need to be puked from the tips of your fingers onto your phone, through mine, and enter my atmosphere that I work so hard to protect? Do each of them need to be responded to and in real time? And if I don’t get back to you about your thought that requires no actual answer in a manner you decide is timely, must I “apologize for my delay” and then thoughtfully respond to you? No. And I won’t. I can’t.

I want to have the freedom to leave my phone at my house and check to see who’s been in touch in the past 12 hours when I get back. I don’t want to carry the weight of other people’s thoughts, feelings, and questions. I am not sitting around, hoping for nonsense someone is going to spew at me all day. If I take hours or days to get back to you it’s because perhaps your text did not require an actual response or it lacked any sense of urgency or I do not have the emotional capacity to get back to you. And I’m seriously lacking in capac these days.

Why do we put so much emotional emphasis on texting? “If he doesn’t respond to me in four minutes, he’s not interested.” “If she doesn’t get back to me today, she doesn’t want to go.” “If they actually cared, they would’ve responded to my thoughts by now.”

No. No one owes you a thing – especially a text. And yet, we put so much weight on how and when people respond and how they spell and use grammar in a vapid transmission of information. (OK, I know what you’re thinking: Yes, BIG YES I’m going to judge your ability to use your and you’re and they’re, their, and there).

Once upon a time, texting was a thoughtful business. Not only did it cost 50 cents per text to send, but one had to engage in the Hell that is T-9 word, tap-tap-tapping to get to F’s and O’s, and V’s. If you were sending a text, you were creating a financial investment, and sitting down to take the time to make SURE your thoughts were perfectly communicated and didn’t run over and into the multi-dollar territory.

Now, every image, every meme, every status update, every notion, idea, or opinion is typed into a small computer and can be transmitted to everyone one can think of – whether or not they’re in the emotional space to accept it.

Now, every social platform – Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn for crying out loud, has an avenue for messages – private messaging, direct messaging, just plain, old messaging. And instead of little, red numbers that just appear on one channel (the phone mounted to the wall), there are now little, red, notifications in every last social medium. If you’d let it, your phone would buzz, and shout, and vibrate “SOMEONE THINKS THEY NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.” And guess what, NO, THEY DO NOT. THE DEADLINES WE GIVE OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER ARE NOT ALWAYS REAL.

None of it is.

It makes me endlessly tired that people have infinite ways to contact me and then have the audacity to say, “Didn’t you see my text/email/missed call/Teams message/LinkedIn message/Facebook message?”

LARGE SIGH.

It’s exhausting processing my own thoughts and feelings, let alone everyone else’s I know, so please don’t waste my time with throwing a red light my way with a “K.”

And yet …

If a day goes by and my phone has not yelled at me with someone tapping me with even the slightest “Hey! Check out this stupid article that you’ll never read” or “Look at this picture I took that invokes no feelings” or some random hieroglyphics I’m supposed to interpret, I feel my sense of self beginning to deflate.

Why hasn’t he responded? What could he possibly be doing? Why hasn’t she answered my question? Why haven’t they acknowledged my feelings?

We attach meaning to so much. The past few years have made this even more so. The world is ending/in good hands/in the worst hands/getting a fresh start.

Our phones have manipulated us and made us validate ourselves with other’s responses, likes, and comments. And we seem to connect other’s reactions to our own self-worth. “If he doesn’t like my photo, he doesn’t like me” or “If she doesn’t reply to my text by the end of the day, she’s a bad friend” or “If they don’t heart my DM, they’re ignoring me.”

None of this is true, and yet some of it could be. It’s difficult to determine what may apply to one person and their own social rules and how they may differ than ours.

For me, after so many texts are exchanged, I’ll demand you call me. While I love a good banter exchange with a person I’m interested in, even then, I think, “For the love of God, I have shit to do, please call me.” I’ll pace and get my steps in or fold my laundry while you do your dishes and eat dinner, and we can pretend we’re in the same space.

I don’t want to be a slave to a six-inch computer. I don’t want to focus simply with my head facing down. I want to hear your voice and feel your energy and experience your body language. I want to watch how you move and twist and pause when you talk to me, and analyze how long you hold my eye contact, instead of reading your practiced, over-thought, and sometimes clinically curated words.

I want my phone mounted to the wall and only accessed when I’m home and in a mental space to devote my full attention to you. Because when my phone is constantly attached to my body, I won’t pay attention to what’s happening to me in the moment. And I want to be mindfully in the moment as much as I can – because life and love can pass us by when our heads are always face down.

Hold your head up – especially from your phone. You have much less time than you think.