I dated a guy who was always sending me one-word answers to my long text messages and it was really annoying. In fact, I eventually decided to give him a taste of his medicine and the results were pretty unexpected.
- I was sick and tired of ‘k.’ Seriously, what’s with that “k” message? It’s not even a message, for crying out loud! Every time I sent my boyfriend long texts, he replied with that damn letter of the alphabet—that, or he’d take a whole day to get back to me. To make matters worse, he sent me that one letter in a text even after taking forever to reply! Did it take him 24 hours to write “k”?
- It was infuriating. I was so angry. After all the effort and energy I put in to write him long messages, it was like he wasn’t even reading them. How could he if he was always writing back such a half-assed, nothing reply?
- I didn’t want to confront him so I took a different approach. I know that talking to him about his bad texting behavior would’ve been better, but I wasn’t sure he’d get what I was talking about. Or, he’d just reply to my concerns via text with “k.” Instead, I decided to start mirroring his texting behavior… for a full week. This ended up teaching me a lot about myself and my boyfriend.
- I felt so rude. Whenever he texted about his day or asked if I wanted to grab a late dinner together, I just replied with “k.” Sometimes I took hours to reply to his messages like he did to me. I found it so difficult. I had to hide my phone so I wouldn’t be tempted to send him a proper, timely response. I felt so rude and so guilty.
- I didn’t like being lazy. It’s like I didn’t care about the guy or our relationship. I hated being that way, but then I realized something: he didn’t feel bad about it! My boyfriend was doing this to me all the time. This was his normal, even though it was shocking to me. Even though I cared about not being seen as rude or lazy to the guy I was dating, he either didn’t give a damn or was living in blissful ignorance, which I found hard to believe.
- It felt like more than just texting. This wasn’t just about our texting behaviors being out of sync, this was about us being different people and being invested in the relationship to different degrees. I was giving way too much, always opening up about my feelings and thoughts to him while responding to him pretty fast. In stark contrast, he was more private and didn’t really make much effort. It felt like he wasn’t really that interested in my feelings or if he was hurting them. It was clear that he didn’t deserve having me in his life.
- He didn’t like my new texting behavior. After two days of my new “text like my boyfriend” test, he asked me what was up. He said I was acting “funny.” I told him nothing was up and I was fine but I didn’t go bend to sending him lengthy messages. I wanted to keep showing him what I’d been dealing with for months.
- On day four, he dumped me! He couldn’t seem to handle my new and really bad texting habits so he broke up with me. He said that I wasn’t being myself and I was treating him badly via text. I couldn’t believe it. He never realized how damaging his texting behavior had been to me, but now he couldn’t handle it when I dished it out to him. Unbelievable! Even more insulting was that he broke up with me via text.
- I told him what I was doing. I came clean and told him that his texting had been really hurtful and I was trying to give him a taste of his own bad medicine. He thought that my behavior was shady and he said he felt like I’d been testing him. I think deep down he realized how much he hurt me but he didn’t want to be man enough to own it and apologize. Honestly, I didn’t care that he was breaking up with me. It really was for the best.
- I need someone who shares my texting habits. I need to be with someone who texts in the same way that I do. I want someone who actually makes an effort to talk to me via text when we’re not together, someone who cares about me and enjoys chatting to me. I don’t want to be with someone I have to beg to show some effort or someone who is only going through the motions instead of investing their time and energy into me. This guy’s texting habits really showed me that he just wasn’t into me.
