Texting Do’s And Don’ts 101

Jennifer Lee Woods August 19, 2020 Divorce 565 Comments

This post I have gotten several requests on. We now live in an age where our main form is of communication is texting. It’s quick and easy. Have you passed, Texting Do’s and Don’ts 101? If not you’ve come to the right place.

So maybe your new to dating, you just recently met someone and you want to do all the right things. Texting can be very intimidating. The biggest problem with texting vs talking on the phone is you lose the emotion behind the words in a text. It can be very bland if your not descriptive or detailed. What a lot of people do is send what I call a “rogue” texts. It is a text that isn’t thought out, your unsure about what to say, and it can get you into trouble. This is where you might ask your friends for help with responses or interpretations of texts you may have gotten. What my friends and I do is phone a friend. We have a rule when one of us starts dating someone new, always run a text by one of us before you hit send. Because once you click that little button there’s no going back.

I personally am not a fan of texting when you first start talking to someone. If I don’t know the guy, he doesn’t know me, my humor, my sarcasm so a lot of things can go wrong and be taken the wrong way. I want to hear his voice, him laughing at the funny things I say, etc., Texting takes away the intimacy of a phone call. But because of the world we live in texting is pretty much unavoidable.

I met someone once that used to always say the word, cutie to me when we texted. He would say, “hi cutie in the morning”, or if I said something funny he would say, “your so funny, what a cutie you are”. It drove me crazy. I almost stopped talking to him it annoyed me so bad. I realized that was something superficial so one day I was annoyed and just told him I wasn’t a child and cutie is a word you use to refer to someone under the age of 10. Done, he got it. Now maybe in person that wouldn’t have annoyed me so much, although I doubt it but again through text there’s no emotion its just words.

Ok, so back to Texting Do’s and Don’ts 101. My best advice is until you are comfortable with texting, just don’t let it be your main form of communication with anyone. Pick up the phone and call them instead. If they don’t want to talk to you over the phone, you might want to ask yourself why that is? To me that’s weird. Why can’t they talk to you? I have kids, but kids go to bed so when their sleeping that’s your time to talk to the person your dating. Or during the day you can pick up the phone and call that person for 5-10min. just to see how their day is going, that’s sweet and thoughtful, they will love that, trust me.

Remember the days when we first met someone and it was so fun to talk to them for hours at night on the phone? All you wanted was to hear their voice? None of us are that busy that we can’t talk on the phone to someone we are dating even if it’s for 30min a day.

Let’s get our class started, of “Texting do’s and don’ts 101, to help you get comfortable with texting someone new:

BASIC TEXTS. In the morning, text them and say, “Hi, Good morning. I hope you have a great day” Depending on their job, which you should know what they do for a living at this point, they might not be able to carry on a back and forth for hours, so don’t drag it on because all you will do is annoy them. Maybe 4/5 back and forth’s and thats it. Say, I will message you after work, or I have meetings, I have to go. Plus, remember this is new, don’t you want them to think about you during the day? Trust me they won’t if your texting them ALL day long. Also, if you text someone all day long, when you do talk to each other at night what are you going to talk about? Because you already talked about your day through textS. Remember texting is only supposed to be an add on, not your main form of communication.

EMOTIONS BEHIND YOUR MESSAGES. Don’t text with close-ended messages. An example of a close ended, no emotion text looks like this: “I had a great time with you last night” Reply of close ended no emotion text, “Me too”. That’s it? Where is the rest? Instead you would want to say, ” Thank you, I did too. I haven’t laughed like that in a long time, I can’t wait to see you again”. The responder told you they had fun too, made a reference to a way you made them feel and also hinted to you that they want to see you again. You don’t need to go on and on and on, especially if this is super new, you don’t want to look like a Stage-5 clinger after the 1st or 2nd date.

FLIRT TEXTING. This can be fun if you know what your doing, if not it can be a flop and just get really weird. So when you do this you want to create a picture in the other persons mind as if they were standing in front of you. You want to attract them in their mind. The goal is to have them feel something, butterflies, a smile, you want to leave them wanting more. Just don’t go crazy with it. As you continue to date and get more comfortable with them this will get more natural for you.

EMOJI’S. If your between the ages of 21-30 multiple emoji’s are fine. Anyone over the age of 30 should not be using emoji’s as a way to show emotion in a text. Unless its 1 or 2 then thats ok, that’s cute. I mean whose got the time to open that button up and look for a bunch of emoji’s to add into text messages.

NEVER, RUSH ANSWER A TEXT. This can get you into hot water and fast. If your busy with something, say work, or your kids are fighting, etc…DO NOT rush answer just to answer especially if your in the middle of something important. Always put yourself on the receiving end of that text, would you want to get a stupid text back from someone and look at your phone and say, WTF does is that supposed to mean? No you wouldn’t. Again this is the problem with texting someone new, they don’t know you that well yet. Maybe you responded with something sarcastic, but they don’t know your sarcasm, they might think your response is rude. All you have to do is say, I’m sorry that was short, I’m really busy with work, or my I’m feeding my kids dinner, I will text you when everything has calmed down, easy. Remember, if your really interested in that person and you do rush texts and they come out rude or nasty that other person can sit there and say, ya know he/she just isn’t that into me this is a waste of my time and then they start with not replying back to you, etc and before you know it its over before it really started all because you suck at texting.

ABBREVIATION TEXTS. Most people hate LOL as a response. I mean is that all you can pull out? If they said something funny respond with haha, or haha that was hysterical. Unless your doing it after a back and forth that’s been going for awhile. My point is give a little more. Get descriptive with your words.

INSIDE JOKES. Once you have been seeing each other for a couple months you now should have inside jokes or nicknames, use those to your advantage, reference them, that adds to your connection and it’s fun. If you want some good jokes to tell through text, check this site out, “Bestlifeonline.com”. Some are great.

SAYING WHATS ON YOUR MIND. If your over the age of 35 you should have been in a few relationships, possibly a marriage, don’t play games. When you‘re thinking about that person, text them and tell them. If you miss them, tell them. I hate games, I don’t play them and I get uninterested VERY fast if I think your playing games with me. Just say what’s on your mind. Obviously, don’t be an idiot about it, don’t message someone 30x a day telling them very single little thing your thinking.

KNOWING IF THEIR INTERESTED OR NOT. If you have been texting them and you don’t get responses for hours, or your always the one to start the messaging their probably not that interested, so move on. This can go the opposite way if you don’t respond well to texts from someone, but you like them then ask yourself maybe is it me and me not showing that much interest? I promise you there will be someone who will be, so don’t waste your time on someone that isn’t giving you the time and attention you deserve.

WHEN TO STOP. If you have sent a few messages and they haven’t replied, stop. They will think your needy and annoying. Remember they might be busy with work and can’t reply. Not everyone has their phones glued to them. You will look needy and then get annoying.

AFTER SEX TEXT. Ok, you’ve been intimate for the 1st time. Either as a one night stand or you had sex for the 1st time with the person your dating. I personally don’t think you should text, this is worthy of a phone call if your dating. If its a one night stand now it’s just awkward especially if you exchanged numbers. Do you message them? Well, probably not if the sex was bad you don’t haha. If you have text to because of work or children being around you, send a message referencing last night. Let him/her know how much you enjoyed it. TRUST ME, both of you are thinking about it, thinking they enjoy it, was it bad, were you nervous? Whatever it is, doesn’t matter. This is that one time texting can be a win for you both. You both need a confirmation. Men and women want to feel like we are enough, that we satisfied each other in bed.

ENDING THINGS THROUGH TEXT. This is ok when its new and by new I mean a month or less OR you have tried several other times to end things and they just won’t/don’t get it. I’ve seen people end things through text and it can get really nasty and fast. If you aren’t interested in that person anymore be polite, but honest. Don’t beat around the bush, don’t say, I’m not ready or not wanting to be in a relationship right now, because they can say, “neither am I”, then what do you do with that? Just say, I had fun getting to know you but this isn’t for me, and block them so you don’t have to keep going back and forth. You shouldn’t have to get rude to get your point across. I don’t like hurting people’s feelings and that gets me into trouble. I get myself stuck in situations all because I didn’t want to just cut the cord. Plus, if you block them you won’t see them continuing to text you. You said what you said and that’s it, move on. Some people just don’t want to let it go, then it just gets weird.

If you need more help with texting, use the “Ask Jen“ forum there’s probably many other people questioning the same things you are, we can all help each other.

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