Being a bad texter was something that I never wanted to be labeled as. However, when I look back, I realized that I used to be the kind of texter that everyone hates. I don’t know why, but I didn’t put that much effort into texting as I didn’t think it mattered. What I was really doing is giving off the wrong impression. Here are 11 reasons why I used to suck at texting:
- Sometimes, I’d take over 12 hours to reply. It’s not like I would ignore someone completely, but I just didn’t feel like there was any rush to text them back right away. I know that makes me sound like an inconsiderate person, but at the time it didn’t feel like a big issue. However, the person on the other side of the screen would start assuming that I simply didn’t want to talk to them and I can see why they came to that conclusion.
- I’d apologize for taking forever to reply but I’d still take forever to reply. Whenever I took a few hours or a few days to get back to someone I’d always feel bad. I’d try to reply quicker the next time but there would always be a distraction and I’d forget to reply. Of course, it made it look like I was a terrible person when I’m actually not.
- If someone took a few hours to reply then I’d take even longer. I know, I know, I’m a huge hypocrite. Sometimes, I’d reply to someone’s message really fast because I wanted to have a conversation with them right then, but then they’d give me a taste of my own medicine and take a while to reply, which annoyed the hell out of me. I’ll admit it was childish.
- I couldn’t keep a conversation going. Dating was hard when I couldn’t even talk to someone for longer than 15 minutes. I don’t know why but if I really liked someone, I would try and avoid texting them. Maybe I was scared of saying the wrong thing or maybe it was my low self-esteem that was holding me back. Either way, being a bad texter made dating even more difficult.
- Sometimes I forgot to reply completely. Trust me, I’d never intentionally ignore someone I care about. However, it’s so easy to get distracted and then simply forget to reply to a message. It happens to everyone. I used to do it quite frequently and some people would eventually gave on me. I guess I can’t blame them because I’d probably do the same thing.
- I used one-word responses to end a conversation. I’ll admit that I’m not proud of it but whenever I wanted a conversation to die, I would reply with a “haha” or “yeah” and it worked every time. To be honest, I only did this with people who I didn’t have any time for.
- If someone double texted me, I’d ignore it. The truth is that I never used to like clinginess, even if it was from someone who I liked. So, if someone texted me twice, I would take even longer than usual to reply so they would get the hint and back off. And guess what? It worked.
- I’d tweet even though I hadn’t replied to someone’s message. Unless someone’s message was urgent and I needed to get back to them ASAP, I’d usually put it off for as long as possible. It’s not because I didn’t care, I was just very lazy when it came to texting back. Honestly, I didn’t think about what I was doing and how that might come across to other people. Being ignored is a huge insult and I can see that clearly now.
- I rarely used emojis. I imagine texting my former self was like texting a robot. For some reason, I hated using emojis and I would avoid them completely, which probably made it look like I didn’t have a personality of a sense of humor. Emojis can make a lot of difference.
- I’d ghost on people I cared about. It sounds bad but sometimes I’d really need some space from my friends or family, so instead of telling them that and risk offending them, I would just disappear for a week or longer. Obviously, ghosting is so much worse but I couldn’t see the damage I was doing at the time. Eventually, I’d find myself with a smaller friendship circle and I probably deserved that.
- Even when I really liked someone, I’d still take ages to reply. At the end of the day, my texting habits don’t reflect how I feel about someone. My boyfriend told me that I used to be awful at texting, which made him assume that I wasn’t interested. It makes me sad that I didn’t realize just how much impact technology has on my relationships and how much it can speak volumes about me. Once I realized that, I started to change the way I feel about texting.
