“What do you think this means?”
“It’s hard to say, how long have you guys been talking for?”
“About a week…”
“Oh, he’s definitely into you, respond!”
These texting conversations don’t occur yearly, or even monthly when you’re a college freshman. In fact, it’s not unlikely for the conversation depicted above to occur once every other week. Unlike high school, the dating game changes drastically when you get to college. Instead of getting the number of a person in your class or asking your friend to introduce you to her biology partner, relationships are formed in a completely different way. In college, you go out to a party, make eye contact with someone you think is attractive, exchange numbers, maybe text for a week or so, and possibly hook up. Then, the cycle repeats itself. Technology has taken over the world of relationships, and now more than ever people are considering talking for hours about the ending of "How I Met Your Mother" as a better date than going out to dinner could ever be.
To be clear, I am not trying to say that every relationship in today’s world is rooted in texting or that people have forgotten how to communicate face to face. One-on-one communication has not fizzled yet. Still, it is hard to ignore the amount of texting that relates directly to how interested someone is in you. If they text you after you met, they’re into you and obviously want to see you again. If they wait a week to respond to you, they want nothing more than a casual hook up. And if you’ve talked every day since you exchanged numbers, congratulations! You’ve met your future spouse! The rules around texting have changed drastically when it comes to communicating with someone that you may be interested in, and it is in this fact that the world of relationships is changing, and fast.
Sure, times have changed. Gone are the days when the captain of the football team asked the head cheerleader if she wanted to go to a drive-in movie Friday night or out to go bowling. Thankfully, we are not in denial of this change, but sadly, we are blind to the ways the dating game used to be played. Rarely do women in todays’ world expect for men to reach out and do this- especially in college, which I would consider to be a problem in and of itself. When I think about it, if someone came up to me and asked me if they could take me out to go bowling, I would be astounded. I probably wouldn’t even be able to respond because I would be so dumbfounded by what they asked me, but should that be how it is? Since when did having an actual sit-down conversation with someone become overrated? Moreover, does texting really help you get to know someone more than an in person interaction does?
We’ve all experienced the power we attain with texting that allows us to say whatever we want and not be as afraid as we would be if we were in person. Whether it’s something harsh, brutally honest, or even a flattering compliment, the separation of two screens allows for us to feel more comfortable expressing how we really feel than if we were looking someone directly in the eyes. Perhaps this is the reason why people feel so much more comfortable starting a relationship over text rather than in person. It allows for a more thought out response, and we don’t have to feel pressured to answer something witty in such a short period of time. Beyond this, we feel a sense of relief in knowing that what we say has a filtered response, making us less likely to mess everything up by bringing up how we had to be a leash child at the zoo when we were younger.
If texting really is the new platform for starting relationships, what does that mean for a future of romance, and moreover, a future of communication? We are already at a point in our lives where we rely too much on technology to get us to our destination, update our friends and family when we check into a new location, and keep us in the loop on what the most popular make-up trend is. Are we really at a point where we are going to rely on technology to help us foster relationships with one another too? Don’t get me wrong, texting is a great way to keep in touch when you’re out of town or during the week when you’re too busy to carve time out of your schedule. That being said, texting should not be used as the only way to show interest in someone. If you want to get to know someone better, do something with them in person. Go to a sporting event, make a trip to a popular new restaurant, drive somewhere and look at puppies. Whatever you think will give you the opportunity to actually get to know someone, do it. Stop sitting on your phone and texting, “Yeah I really like you, maybe I’ll see you out on Friday night?” Sure, it makes the other person feel good, but at the end of the day those words are meaningless chatter on a tiny black screen. Dig yourself out of the social media hole that we have all fallen into and find a way to have actual conversations. Who knows, you may come to find that in person conversations mean a lot more than your 2 a.m. drunk texts ever could.
