Get Yo Text On

Text messaging has really messed up the whole dating thing. No longer is a guy expected to call a girl to talk or intentionally flirt with a girl in public places. Text messaging solves all the problems. No nervous feelings or awkward moments of silence exist when texting. You never say anything stupid because you have time to think and respond extra cleverly. They can't see your sweaty palms, food in your teeth, or unzipped fly. You can all the sudden create this person you have always wanted to be because it's a text message and not a real conversation. I have even seen cases where the guy and girl are in the same room full of people "getting their text on" literally sitting within ten feet of each other. This is what text messaging has come to.

I was talking to a guy the other night who I guess just really needed someone to talk to. He voluntarily told me about his current girl problem and came to me seeking advice. Little did he know at the time, but this guy taught me a lot. He unconsciously answered many questions that I have had for a while and shined light on some areas I did not even know existed. So he was telling me how he had been talking/texting this girl for the past few months (the middle stage of dating previously known as "talking" has now evolved into "texting"). He said that he could tell she was playing games like all girls apparently do, ya know...blowing up his phone one minute and then playing hard to get the next. So, he had decided to play the games too. He told me that whenever she texted him he would purposely not respond for atleast half the day if not the whole day, and then when he finally did respond, he kept it very short with words such as "yeah," "ok," and "cool." He said that he knew this was probably driving her nuts, and it ended up working because after this very vague text convo, the next couple of days she was texting him anything she could think of trying to redirect his attention her way. He knew all along what he was doing, and his point was to try to keep her hanging on and coming back for more.

Boys, let me tell you, this was a revelation to me. This whole time we thought yall just weren't interested in us. I will admit that this strategy does work. If we text and you don't resond within the hour, our minds are automatically jumping to conclusions. We begin to wonder what you could possibly be doing, who you are with all of the sudden that has captured your attention away from our flirt session via text. We instantly make excuses like oh he probably is just working out or something and left his phone at home, or maybe he is talking to his mom on the other line. Then, we eventually convince ourselves that you must not have gotten our text message. It didn't go through or maybe we accidently pressed the end button instead of the send button. Then...you respond. Halleluia! We jump to see what it says and your ingenius plan worked. We are once again wrapped around your manly little finger.

Boys, props to you. Way to play the game so well, but I will say don't wait too long. If you don't respond within a day, we are probably going to get over you and move on to the next text-flirt session. Use your strategies wisely and don't get too overzealous.

Hint of the day: If you send us a text and we don't respond within half the day, we probs aren't interested in you or we are just interested in someone else. We are never too busy to ignore your text for too long, and if we are busy, we will pretty much drop anything to respond if you are the cute guy we are diggin.

(There are some exceptions to this such as long class hours with mean viscous teachers who would deduct points if you even brought that cellular device to class, or if we were at the lake/beach for the day, a family reunion, laying out forgetting our phone at home, etc. Use your good judgement to apply this insight.)

Lindsey's Man Criteria #2: You must love and be sweet to your momma. There is nothing more attractive than a guy who respects his mom and treats her like a queen because we all know that how you treat your momma is how you will eventually treat your wife!