A Guide to Textiquette

There are basic rules to follow when it comes to texting. The act of initiating a text thread is a simple statement. It says "I want to talk to you...but I don't want a commitment. Texting is the one night stand of human communication. Phone calls ask for too much. There's the awkward hello, and the never ending goodbye. Sadly, if you live in my apt then you also have to deal with the 1/2 bar of signal coverage, so there's the non stop "what was that?". Its truly a black hole. Damn you T-Mobile.

Texting fixes all of that.

Here are the texting rules

• Initialisms: At no time can a man text "LOL", "OMG", IMO, or ROTFLOL. (BTW is acceptable). No one is "rolling on the floor laughing out loud." Who rolls on the fucking floor?

• Emoticons: They are unacceptable! Smiley faces help distinguish when someone is being goofy...I get it. That said, I'll never use them.*
  

Btw, (see how i used that there) thanks to Wikipedia we can now hold someone accountable for these damn emoticons.

• Screening: If someone calls and you have a missed call from them it is totally acceptable to text them "missed your call, what's up" instead of actually calling them back. Furthermore, its acceptable to also hit the ignore bottom when they call, and then again text "what's up"

• Speed of reply: I've been polite enough to screen your calls and ignore you. The least you can do is reply promptly to my text. Where the hell are your manners anyway? (makes me think of this quote from Stranger's With Candy: "I need more out of this relationship than I'm willing to put in. I think I deserve better, don't you?".)

• Rapid fire: Machine gun texting = funny. Machine gun phone calls = scary. Pulling a Favreau in a Swingers esque message meltdown is almost impossible in text form. Why subject yourself to that type of shame?

• Memory's lil helper: Texting (along with your camera phone or elph) is this generation's version of bringing around a sober friend when you go out at night. It remembers everything and fill in the blanks the morning after those long long black out Saturdays. Isn't it nice to rely on yourself (and your text log) instead of some sober friend who silently judged your drunk ways the previous night.
  

Self sufficiency = peace of mind.

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*I used a smiley for the 1st time (and it felt dirty and wrong) ever last month when my bastard landlord was trying to charge me a $100 late charge for my "late" rent check. The check was on time, but written out to two different totals (one correct, one incorrect) thus rejected by the bank. In an effort to avoid the steep penalty I reminded him that I had given him a free copy of Adobe Photoshop and so we could call it even.(insert emoticon) My logic with the :) was that gay men probably love emoticons and I could use it to my advantage. I was wrong. I had to pay the piper.