Texting

Texting—isn’t it weird to think that our parents never had it? It’s such a fundamental part of our culture now. If you don’t have it, you’re outdated.  Texting is also controversial—people have all heard about texting during class, texting and driving, and even sexting.  I’m sure I could fill several posts talking about each of these topics, but for now I’m sticking with a different angle—how texting affects our relationships (and also our time).

I was a little late to the “texting party.”  I got texting the summer after I graduated from high school—about 2 years after most of my friends did.  I didn’t text much at first…

(This is a highly professional graph I made at work the other day.)

Then, I started talking to Boy, and the number of texts I sent/received looked like this:

(sorry, it's a little blurry.  The note says, "Started texting Boy! :D")

Boy and I started dating…

…and then we broke up.

Seriously, I didn't text anyone when we first broke up.  I didn't want to talk to anyone else, and I sure couldn't talk to him anymore.  It was ridiculous, but more on that later...

Not very long after the breakup, Boy and I talked about maybe, possibly getting back together, and my texts went up again...

...But it didn't work out. Back down to (almost) zero.

 This is roughly how much I text now.

 And here's the whole graph:

Ok, I know my graph is corny/dumb/whatever.  But it was my life, and I learned a few lessons from it..

First of all--and this might not apply to anyone but me--for awhile I let my worth be determined by how many texts I was getting, and from how many people.  When I first broke up with Boy, I wasn't getting any texts, and I felt like no one in the whole world cared about me.  Which is ridiculous.  But I totally bought into that lie because I let my value be defined by how many people wanted to talk to me.  According to Christ, my value lies in the fact that I have been created by God and redeemed by Christ's blood.  I have to remind myself this; not only when I'm not getting texts, but also on days when I mess up, don't feel pretty, say stupid things, and don't measure up to other people's expectations of me.  On days like that, I have to remind myself that not only am I a princess, but God Himself chose me!  So, the fact that I don't get a lot of texts means nothing at all...

Second, Boy and I texted about everything.  We rarely talked on the phone, and our face-to-face communication was even more limited.  Now, for the first part of our relationship, we were roughly 1500 miles apart because I was going to school in New York.  So, a lot of the communication had to be over text.  Plus, texting is just easier when you're busy.  Still, it got to where we were a lot more comfortable texting each other than we were talking to each other.  It was so bad, that whenever I was with him, I would think of something and then think, "Oh, I'll text him about that later."  How sad is that???  I would be willing to bet that over 85% of our fights happened over text.   This is one of my biggest regrets about that relationship.  I've made a rule that in my next relationship, and also when talking to my friends, anything important--good or bad--will be said face to face.  If that's not possible, I'll call them.  One of the flaws of texting is that it's black-and-white--there's no tone of voice, or facial expression/body language, so it's a lot easier for misunderstandings to occur.  This caused a lot of fights in the relationship.  Lesson very much learned.

So, that's my point of view on texting.  What's yours??