5 Texts I Wish I'd Never Sent

 On June 4, 2002, Avril Lavigne, the soon-to-be epitome of all things awesome and angsty, released the album ‘Let Go’. It was credited as one of the top pop albums of 2002, which leads me to believe a lot of girls, like myself, heard it and adopted various lyrics to use as life mantras throughout middle school, high school, and yes, ok, college. In the song, “Things I’ll Never Say”, Avril bemoans her lack of risk taking, lamenting, “I'm wishing my life away/

With these things I'll never say”. After hearing the song, I, like many of my socially awkward, Avril-sings-my-soul believing peers, felt that I should learn from Avril, and confess my internal emotional quandaries to the 6^th grade boy who made my heart stop when he passed me in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, the sentiments were not returned (I did after all have two lazy eyes, yes both eyes were lazy) and I sat in my bed that night, sobbing and listening to Michelle Branch’s “Are You Happy Now?”. Sadly, as the years wore on, I forgot that vital life lesson and upon entering college, decided against wishing my life away on the things I’ll never say – and by that I mean, braced with liquid courage or deluded self confidence, I would, on occasion, send incredibly straight forward texts to boys, that really, should never have been sent. As it transpired, there’s a reason Avril implied that these were things never to say. There’s no way of taking back these texts, but perhaps they will provide a cautionary tale to all of you who wear your heart on your digital sleeve.

1.      “My bed was more fun with you in it ;)” – I sent this at the beginning of freshman year to a frat guy who’d spent the night with me. We’d only made out, but I’d had fun and I sent this text the next day. Not only did he not respond, but he showed it to all of his fraternity brothers, which obviously implicated that we’d done a lot more than kiss. In retrospect it was the fault of the winky face, because it made it that much more of a promiscuous text. We never hooked up again.

2.      “Nice pink shirt! Haha.” – I sent this upon seeing the guy I was hooking up with. He was on the bottom floor of union, I was on the top. I (mistakenly) thought it would be cute to let him know I could see him. Unfortunately, it came off as incredibly creepy.

3.      “Your new girlfriend is so pretty! You guys are really cute together” – I sent this after seeing an old one-time hook up at a party. This was just wrong in so many ways. First, because it was unnecessary to comment in the first place. Second, because as it turned out, this was not his new girlfriend and the response was, “What the hell are you talking about?”. And third, because it made me look hella creepy – I was at a party, clearly I should have been socializing with friends, playing pong, or downing punch, and not pretending I was the new Perez Hilton of Davidson College.

4.      I’d asked a guy if he’d like to hang out during the week and he replied that he had a big econ paper and he’d be busy. I then (stupidly!) replied, “How about next week?” to which he replied, “I’m going to be busy for a really long time”. Worst. Rejection. Ever. (if you have worse stories of text rejection, comment here because I’d love to know that there’s worse out there.) Note: once someone gives you an excuse, like, they’re busy, and doesn’t offer a rain check, TAKE A FREAKING HINT. I wish I had.

5.      “Why is it that you’re the only person I can think about before I fall asleep?” – sent to someone who had demonstrated a clear disinterest in me. This was my drunken attempt to relay my deepest emotions. Unfortunately it came off as articulate, and thus sober – so I couldn’t blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. The response was almost as bad as the text itself:  “Dunno.” Oh. God. The. Shame.

               So, there you have it folks. 5 texts that will forever sit, laughing at me, in the archives of my phone’s ‘sent’ box (though sometimes, I delete awful texts I’ve sent and pretend I never sent them. If they’re not there, then they never were, right?). Yeah, unfortunately denial of that sort doesn’t really work too well, especially when your text has been passed around a brotherhood and repeated back to you verbatim. Thanks a lot, Avril.

Lurning Two Spell Wurds Write

Cymotrichous. Greek in origin, meaning wavy-haired. A 12-year-old recently spelled this to win the Scripp’s National Spelling Bee. Granted, this kid is probably a child prodigy who will out-perform and out-earn us all later in life (yes, even we esteemed Davidson students). Nevertheless, if an 8^th grader can spell cymotrichous, you should have at least a tenuous grasp on basic vocabulary in texts.

The Textperts are pretty judgmental people. We will judge you immensely if you confuse homophones. You’re ≠ your. Too ≠ to ≠ two. Their ≠ they’re ≠ there. These words are not synonyms. Do not treat them as such. Read before you hit send! If you can’t catch these in proofreading, you have no business texting because you are probably in third grade. Or illiterate.

Misspellings are equally as unforgiveable. You have Autocorrect. If Autocorrect tells you that you are wrong, you most likely are. If Autocorrect fails, here is a list of elementary spelling rules:  http://grammar.about.com/od/words/tp/spellrules.htm. There’s even a test at the end. If you don’t know how to spell a word, find a synonym. If you don’t know what a synonym is, stop reading this article now and go get a dictionary.

The Textperts are a little more lenient concerning grammar in texts. We don’t always end our texts with periods, we commit the occasional comma splice, and we certainly don’t  capitalize all of our proper nouns. Many of these oversights are intentional: if you’re too formal in a text, you sound like a weirdo. You don’t want to sound like a weirdo. Emails, though, are a different story—you don’t want your boss/professor/whoever to think you’re a complete idiot. Spell check is awesome and for winners.

There are few incidents in which misspellings and grammatical errors are acceptable. Drunk texts: we can’t (or shouldn’t, at least) be held accountable for what our brains translate to our thumbs under the influence of cheap vodka (or Pika Punch—recent experiences necessitate a non-negotiable life ban on this libation). Life-changingly important gossip: obviously, relaying the message that some trick-ass hussy hooked up with the boy you’re lusting after or that He Who Hath Murdered Your Soul and Crushed Your Heart has been spotted in the Union is way more important. Texting parents: my mom never, ever uses punctuation or capitalizes in texts because she doesn’t know how to—hi honey what are you doing dad and i are grocery shopping—and when I text her back, I forget to punctuate as well. Free pass.

However, if you are sober, the message imparted is not life changing, and/or you’re under the age of forty, and you’re still misspelling, then it’s time to pay more attention to what you’re texting. Why? Because sounding like your reading comprehension level hasn’t surpassed the Berenstain Bears is not hot, and we’re all laughing at you whenever we receive one of your spelling-error rich texts. In fact, if you’re a frequent enough offender, we’ll probably start using your name as an insult when we, the ladies of textiquette, make the occasional spelling error. “Don’t pull a Goldenburgowitz!” we might say, in reference to our friend Mitchell Goldenburgowitz, King of the Wrong Homophone.

To really drive in what we mean, here’s a sample collection of the worst misspellings we’ve gotten – English Majors beware, these are somewhat graphic.

1.      “I’m not aloud to go out tonight”

2.      “Wear are you?”

3.      “Your looking hot tonight” – I’m sorry, my what is looking hot tonight?

4.      “I really lik you” – hmm…you should really double check that spelling, phonically this has an entirely different meaning to what may have been intended

5.      “I cant, I have to right a paper”

Now, it should be noted that intentional misspellings, such as “Y isn’t he txting me back?” and “Cuz U R crazy” are acceptable. It’s a text message, and we’re down with the one letter spellings and abbrevs (see our previous article on abbreviations), as long as they don’t carry over to emails, papers, etc. It’s just those glaring mistakes that make you look like a total goon that really ought to be avoided.

In other news, guest contributor and hilarious writer Mike Goldberg will soon be penning an article on the art of seduction via text. Hold onto your panties.  If you have any hilarious texting mishaps to share, Tweet us (http://twitter.com/#!/TextiquetteBlog), email us (perkinsa19@gmail.com), or comment!

XOXO, the Textperts

Crossed Wires and Bad Liars

                Ok folks, let’s be real, we’ve all done it – you’re writing a text about someone, something romantic and gushy or something bitchy and cold, but you’re so stuck on the person that you’re writing it about , that that is the name that stays in your head when you choose who to send the text to. Before you know it, you’re sending that emotionally devastating text to the absolute opposite of your intended recipient. You try and hit cancel, if you have an iPhone, there is no cancel and you shake the phone, hit it against something, hope that somehow you can stop the inevitable. You imagine the text, hundreds of invisible letters speeding like little social-life ending bullets through the air. You imagine the beep, vibrate, buzz, ding of the person’s phone, the puzzled look on their face, the dawning look realization that spreads across their face, the consequential laughter, tears or repugnance. Once the initial panic is over, you start furiously brainstorming of how to do damage control. (Not) surprisingly people never want to just own up and tell the truth. If you’re one of those people (let’s be real, you probably are), the ladies at Textiquette have collected stories from our wizened and sage friends, or textsperts if you will, and  have created an arsenal of possibly believable excuses that could be used as damage control if you find yourself in this situation (which, invariably, you will).

                We recently heard a story of a brilliant cover up during one of the worst cases of crossed wires we could imagine encountering. A guy was texting his new hookup and decided to cut to the chase in sending in her a pretty blunt text: “How about some vag?” – yes gross, we know. Unfortunately, his is one of those phones that asks you if you want to send to the most recent recipient, and if you click, even by accident, it will send it to that person. In this particular case, the person was his mother. Horror of horrors, we know. However, our young sexter managed to recover absolutely brilliantly. Upon realizing his error, he quickly sent a follow up text, “Sorry mom, I lost a bet, I had to send you that.” The ladies of textiquette were floored by his genius. Well done, sir, well done. So, excuse numero uno: blame it on a lost bet, a dare, what have you. To really drive this in, have some other friends mention the bet/dare to the text recipient when they’re next around them. Have them throw in some, “god, wasn’t that dare sooooo funny?” and “oh my gosh, he thought you’d think he ACTUALLY meant it, OBVI it was a dare, ha ha!”, just for good measure.

                None of our other excuses really measure up to the aforementioned stroke of genius, but we’ll give them to you anyway .

As we mentioned in our very first textiquette article, one of our dear textiquette ladies accidentally sent a text, which relayed in full her absolute obsession with a guy, to said guy. Awk, to say the least. In this case, she actually just told the truth (noob), but in retrospect, we’ve come up with some creative ways she could’ve gotten out of this one.

1. Sorry! Someone stole my phone!
2. I was drunk (and inexplicably articulate)
3. Your ex girlfriend had a gun to my head and made me send it in a convoluted effort to destroy our blossoming love

Ok, so the third one will take a little more background work (i.e. his ex needs to be legitimately in an asylum already or else you’ve got some major convincing to do), but desperate times call for desperate measures, my friends.

So what about in the not quite as bad event that you accidentally text the bitchy message about your “friend” Alyssa that was meant for Ashley to Alyssa? It’s not as bad as texting the guy you’re interested in – why? Because the guy didn’t already have an inkling that you were obsessed with him (hopefully), whereas unless your friend is completely oblivious, she probably knew to some degree that you talked smack about her and this will only confirm her suspicions. Or will it? 

So, here’s the scenario:

You write a text meant for Ashley that says, “Alyssa hasn’t stopped bragging about the freaking five pounds she lost. Will she just shut up?!” but the text goes to Alyssa. WHAT DO YOU DO?

1. You could say, “Haha, sorry, didn’t mean to write ‘Alyssa’, meant to write ‘Sara’, I was just thinking of you when I wrote the text cuz I was sending it to you. But seriously, have you heard Sara bragging? You lost five pounds and you haven’t been obnoxious! She should learn from you!” – This text, though unfortunately implicating your friend Sara, will serve the dual purpose of covering your ass after that stupid text faux pas and also complimenting Alyssa and thus throwing her off the scent by making her think that you think that she’s actually modest. Unfortunately, she’ll probably start bragging about how modest she is. If she does, do what everyone else does and just bitch about it as soon as she leaves the room. Duh.
2. You could say, “oh weird, my phone auto-corrected ‘Ashley’ to ‘Alyssa’” then insert the same thing you said about Sara.
3. You could say, “my phone autocorrected “should be” to “hasn’t stopped” and “She should be proud, she looks great” to “Will she just shut up?!” This one isn’t quite as believable, but you could convince Alyssa that your tech savvy boyf has been messing around with your phone and it is now autocorrecting things to the opposite of their semantic intent. Alyssa will probably believe you because she doesn’t understand technology, only effective weightless techniques. Ugh.

So my dear friends, if you find yourself in a digital pickle, fear not, you can rely on our arsenal of extremely believable (for the most part) excuses. But beware – if you receive any of the aforementioned as a follow up text, you’re probably being lied to. Awk.

You Should Totes Read This Post About Abbrevs, Obvs

I abbreviate a lot. I know it’s obnoxious. But it’s so easy, and they’re just so catchy. However, despite being a frequent offender, I have a lot of questions about abbreviations. When is it appropriate to use them? How do you spell the ones that don’t conveniently translate themselves? What are legitimate abbreviations? How do you tell your friend she sounds like an idiot for using so many abbreviations? Here, Textiquette will try to prevent you from sounding like a huge douche when you abbreviate.

First, the appropriateness of abbreviations. Probably not okay: in serious conversation, or when you’re talking to someone born before 1985 (they won’t understand you). Probably not appropriate: when you’re talking to someone you don’t know very well, or someone you’re trying to get with (abbrevs are a polarizing subject—not everyone shares my affinity for them, and you don’t want to be judged). An example of appropriate abbreviation use:

YOUR FRIEND: Did you hear about [insert name of your drunkest, sloppiest friend] last weekend?

YOU: Yeah, I heard she was so bellig that she broke into [insert name of drunk, sloppy friend’s ex-boyfriend]’s apartment and threatened to beat up his new girlfriend! Awk.

An example of inappropriate abbreviation use:

                                YOUR LOVE INTEREST: Hey, what are you doing tonight?

                                YOU: Not sure, probs just hanging out with the girls and maybs going out later! I’d totes be down to hang whenev, though!

                                YOUR LOVE INTEREST: Um, actually never mind.

Sometimes, abbreviations sound really great in actual conversation but don’t translate so well into text. A personal favorite of mine is offish, as an abbreviation for official: “Did you see that their relationship is Facebook offish? Crazy!” But it just looks awkward in text:  offish? Like, sort of off? Drams, a perfectly acceptable oral abbreviate for drama—major drams!—looks weird when written. What is a dram? Perhaps the most difficult one: ush? Yoozhe? Us?  I’m trying to express the abbreviation for usual—see, I can’t even spell it. Rule of thumb: if it’s not immediately clear what your abbrev is supposed to abbreviate, don’t use it.

Basic rules to avoid sounding like an idiot while abbreviating: don’t use more than one or two per text, and stick to this list of Textiquette-approved abbreviations, which conveniently includes translations for our older or abbreviation-illiterate readers:

                                totes (totally)

                                obvs (obviously)

                                whatevs (whatever)

                                whenev (whenever)

                                legit (legitimate, legitimately)

                                awk (awkward)

                                bellig (belligerent, belligerently)

                                ridic (ridiculous)

                                reg (regular)

                                natch (naturally)

Happy texting (and abbreving!)

[posted by amp]

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Big news: I finally let go of the early 2000s and got a Blackberry. See ya, LG ENV2. It's been real. In other news, Textiquette is (should be, anyway) viewable on your phone! Check it out.


On to Textiquette matters: it's recently come to light that I am terrible at ending things--relationships, flings, hookups, what have you. Though this post may not make me too many friends--of the sensitive and mature variety, anyway, and who really wants those--I've discovered that texting is the perfect solution for those who, like me, are emotionally stunted and unempathetic and avoid discussing feelings at all costs. Disclaimer: I'm not saying this is the right thing to do. Most of my friends and fellow Textiquette contributors disapprove of my continual emotional cop-outs. But it's sure as hell easier.


If you've ever broken up with someone, or even just ended a short rendezvous, you know how inconvenient it is. You have to explain your reasoning. You have to field questions like, "Why isn't it working?" "What did I do?" "Is there someone else?" You might even have to deal with tears or sad attempts to convince you otherwise. It's just uncomfortable. Thankfully, technology precludes any of these things from being necessary, and, my friends, you have options.


Best case scenario: the messy tangle of emotions you're unfortunately stuck in is short-term. If you've only hooked up a couple times, if it's only lasted a few weeks, you're in the clear. In these situations, I'm a fan of the fizzle-out method. It's pretty self-explanatory: you just let the relationship (if it can even be called that) fizzle out. You stop responding to their texts completely. You don't answer their phone calls. You avoid running into them. You change your route to class, if necessary. If a sighting is unavoidable, you smile vaguely in his or her direction while looking at the floor or ceiling. You definitely don't initiate contact, ever again. It's cold, but it's a clean break. That's what you wanted, right?


The fizzle-out method works until, sadly, it doesn't. There's always that one who hangs on, who refuses to get your painfully obvious hints that your amorous liaison is long over. The hanger-on texts you repeatedly, even if you haven't responded in weeks, to say, "Hey, what are you up to tonight?" They seek you out at parties and sometimes even text your  friends to see what your problem is. If you're a nice person, here is where you take responsibility and have a conversation with the hanger-on, in which you explain why you are ending things. Ideally, you part on amicable terms. However, if you're me, you just continue ignoring the hanger-on and/or hope that your friends love you enough to do it for you (thanks, guys).


The fizzle-out method is perfect if you would prefer to pretend that your fling never happened and if you're okay with never speaking to your former love bunny ever again--or if you're okay with them hating you indefinitely and spreading vicious rumors about you and glaring at you across rooms.  However, the fizzle-out method is not always a viable option if you have any modicum of compassion: if your relationship has lasted longer than a few weeks, or if the person you wish to physically extract from your life has exhibited actual feelings for you (weird, I know). But fear not! You can still avoid actual conversation with a simple text that says, "You're cool and all, but I don't think this is going to work out. Let's just be friends." It requires slightly more balls than the fizzle-out method, but not that much more. Once you send the text, you're absolved of all responsibility or culpability, and you can subsequently ignore any contact from the person while avoiding the labels of "tease" or "asshole" or "heartless bitch." Everyone wins, and you're free to prowl once again. Or, you know, just lay in bed by yourself and watch Netflix.


In the interest of fairness and journalistic integrity, the girls of Textiquette should admit that they, too, have been on the other, sadder, end of the fizzle-out method and the relationship-ending text. But that's a story for another post.

[posted by amp]

Punctuation...and failed relations

Friends,

It’s been a while – I know. There was homework, work, and then finals. But the ladies of Textiquette are back. And…It. Is. Time. To…talk! About? Punctuation!!...

Punctuation is an art in and of itself, in so far as you can get it very wrong, but also because punctuation is the textual equivalent to the eyebrow raise, the sarcastic tone, the passive aggressive voice. As a result, punctuation, done wrong, can be disastrous.

Let’s talk about the right way to use punctuation:

1. At the end of a declarative sentence – i.e. “Yes, I’ll be there at 10.”
2. To express excitement – i.e. “Congratulations babe!”
3. To ask a question – i.e. “Why isn’t he texting me back?”

There are of course other uses of punctuation, for instance, the comma, but mechanical errors, though embarrassing, are not the worst faux pas you can make while texting.

Here are a couple of examples of how misused punctuation can completely change the interpretation of a text:

1. (in response to a dinner invitation) “Sure, I’d love to!” sounds sweet, but excited, the reader of the text will feel confident that the girl is genuine in her affirmation of the date. However, “Sure!! I’d love to!!!!!!” invokes the image of a wide-eyed-bouncing-up-and-down-shrieking-with-excitement type of girl, who has just called her 15 closest friends, her parents, her extended family and is planning a trip to her grandparents grave site, to share the news that she’s gotten asked on a date.
2. (when asking someone their ETA because they’re ten minutes late) “On your way?” sounds casual, curious and pragmatic – they’re late, you’re just reaffirming that they’re meeting you. “On your way???????????” makes you seem like you are practically ballooning up with baited breath, and the recipient of the text may imagine you, pacing your living room, looking up at the clock so much you get whiplash, and preparing a pot of water in which to boil the bunny of your lover’s child.

Conversely, you can use punctuation to imply passive aggressiveness, for instance, in response to your friend telling you she won the grant you both had applied for, you might say “Congratulations.” – the period implies a flat, unexcited tone, but if questioned you can attest to your congratulations and how big of a person you are to congratulate her at all, and so she will be unable to bitch about how passive aggressive you’re being. Hah.

In the past few weeks I’ve come face to face, or rather, phone to phone, with a particularly curious type of punctuation misuse – the unneeded ellipsis.

A guy who had gotten my number from a friend, texted me to say, “Hey…this is Sam…from the baseball game…” Guys – if you’re trying to woo a girl, texts that sound like you have a speech impediment or asthma so severe you gasp between clauses is NOT the way to go. And while we’re discussing this particular text, simply announcing your presence via text unless specifically asked to (i.e. if someone says, “text me your number), is weird, and awkward. Texts are, contrary to popular belief, not the electronic equivalent of a conversation. While it’s fine to introduce yourself at a party, introducing yourself via text is creepy, because a. it implies I didn’t know you before and b. it shows that you’re an overzealous stalker, because despite the fact that we don’t know each other, you have my number.

Still, that being said, sometimes people have bad textiquette, so I decided to reply anyway. Mistake. The next text only followed suite, “What’re you doing…”

Clearly – that is a question. Am I right? A weird question, given I don’t really know this guy, but clearly a question. So where was the question mark? Ellipses mean you trail off mid sentence, which made me think of this guy as constantly…trailing…off…mid…sentence…and…sounding…so…dramatic…

Perhaps he was trying to create an air of intrigue, a façade of mystery, or perhaps he didn’t know how to finish his sentence, but for whatever reason, Sam was misusing punctuation in such a way that I was completely deterred from texting him again. In fact, I was able to end the text convo on a polite note because of his ineptitude in the punctuation department.

I’d said I was from Atlanta and he said “So, you a Braves fan…” – I don’t ever really talk about sports, so the conversation was dying slowly anyway, but I put it out of its misery by simply not replying. My friend told me I was being rude, but I explained that the absence of a question mark made it, well, not a question, and thus no response was necessary. BAM (exclamation mark).