This is what my friends told me about texting:
They told me that it is going to replace phone calls, that soon I won’t be calling anyone at all. But. Unlike 1985, before the days of call waiting, unlimited calling, and free nighttime minutes, when I talked on the phone so much I had to keep a log of all my calls for my Mom to monitor (she eventually had to get her own line in order to eke out any airtime (or rotary dial phone landline time) at all), or 1992 when I would spent the whole school days with my BFFs, talking and passing notes, and then the whole school nights on the phone with them, recapping everything that had happened that day, anticipating the weekends, talking about plans and parties and possibilities, and then summarizing everything we had already talked about, these days I barely ever talk on the phone, and I tend to display tendencies as a social isolator. So I think that texting, rather than being a replacement will be a supplement and add to the richness, the flavorfulness, the robustness of my technology diet.
This is another thing my friends told me about texting:
That there is a certain type of guy, perhaps a, let’s hypothetically call him, emotionally unavailable type of guy, who will only text. He won’t call, he won’t write full, hearty emails, he will just text. And in this way, with this type of guy, texting will actually replace intimacy instead of supplement it.
And what I say to that is:
Right now, no one’s really calling me per se, so a serial texter would be an apparent step up, a seeming improvement, and I am tempted to say ‘That’s cool, I love texting, it ain’t no thang,’ and settle. Except.
I want a multi-faceted (and emotionally available) guy. I want the whole technological package – someone who will write and call and round it all out with some well-timed texts. I don’t want to starve on paltry low-cal reduced fat snacks; I want the complete, delicious, nutritious, lip-smacking, clean-your-plate-delectable meal, with texting as the dessert, the cherry perched on top of the ice cream sundae, the cream cheese icing slathered on the red velvet cake. Yum.
So I am more tempted to believe that this available, in-touch, communicative-on-many-levels-and-via-many-forms-of-technology man exists. Despite evidence sometimes pointing to the contrary, I am more tempted to have faith, and trust he will appear, that affirming you-have-a-new-message beep comfortingly announcing his arrival.
Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer Garam
