In 2004, when Nokia’s were blue and Apple only made big, brightly coloured computers, you’d be hard pressed to get me off my phone. Thank god they didn’t calculate screen time in the noughties as I would have had nothing to brag about. My phone was glued to my hand—and that was without Instagram and Depop. Purely texting my friends and playing Snake.
Now, I tolerate my phone at best. Don’t get me wrong, ApplePay has replaced my wallet, and I’d be desolate and dehydrated somewhere in the outback without GoogleMaps, but I solemnly believe phones are the root of all evil.
As a result, I am a prolific and horrifically Bad Texter. I hate spending time on my phone, it rarely leaves me feeling good, so I often ignore it for long periods of time. Coupled with my genetic disposition for completely forgetting things, I often reply in my head but not physically, or I hear the message in the car then tell myself to sort it out later (and don’t). But my most toxic trait is messaging someone and even if they reply a second later, taking days to reply back. That cute/highly frustrating sort of thing.
Honestly, it’s lucky I have any friends. I’m incredibly annoying to get ahold of and you can’t guarantee on any sort of follow up. I live in awe of my friends who always get back to someone within a 24 hour time frame. My friend Ruby is like the case study for good modern day correspondence—three kids, a husband, a career and there’s not a thing that woman misses.
Meanwhile, I’ve just accepted that I’m a Bad Texter. Same way I’ve accepted my grey hair: it’s a pathological condition. Until I saw a Subway Takes interview recently with Delaney Rowe.
Rowe’s take: ‘There’s no such thing as being a bad texter, they just don’t want to respond.’
Her (undeniably sound) reasoning being I that Bad Texters become Very Good Texters when they need something. And, sadly, she’s not wrong. If I’m feeling texty, then I’m the world’s fastest replier—but you have to catch me with a) my phone in my hand and b) a strong desire to procrastinate. (B isn’t hard, but catching me with my phone in my hand is slightly harder.) Plus when I need soemthing, I do get back to people quickly!
However, Kareem Rahma, the interviewer, nails it when he argues that, ‘The standards to be a good texter are so high.’
And he’s not wrong! We’re expected to constantly reply to every text, email, Facebook comment, Messenger message, WhatsApp message, Instagram comment, Instagram message, call, voicemail, all while ‘being present’, meditating, eating twenty vegetables a day, drinking a gallon of water, building a bossb*tch career and abs. PLUS, often, keeping a pet/human/plant alive.
It’s TOO MUCH.
The expectations of when people should get back to you are ridicuslous. A guy I went on ONE date with complained when I didn’t get back to him within FOUR HOURS. I don’t even write back to my mother that fast.
To be a good texter and get back to everyone and everything immediately means having my entire day dictated by my phone—which I don’t want to do. It’s nothing personal. Simply that I’d prefer to read Robin Hobb and plants flowers in my garden. Also, it turns out when you’re a single parent, if you don’t wash everyone’s undies, no one will.
Given I spent most of early noughties on the phone (landline and mobile), part of me thinks I’m over it. I used up all my minutes. YET, if you happen to catch me on the phone, you’re in for an absolute marathon—you’ll be begging me to hang up. So, to sum up, I’m a walking contradiction.
The bigger piece I can’t untangle is whether being a Bad Texter makes me a bad friend? I worry it makes me an unreliable friend. Not in the physical or emotional sense, just in the ‘will she actually ever reply to my message’ sense. Most of the time they build up until I have to set aside a few hours to do ‘my correspondence’ like I’m Mrs Van Rhijan in The Gilded Age. (A must-watch, by the way.)
I understand my not-replying can make people feel like I don’t care about them, when I do—deeply. I’ve had multiple boyfriends express issue with my lack lustre relationship with my phone.
There’s positives though—being a Bad Texter often makes me a more present mum. I’m happy to ignore my phone and just play. I can tell my daughter prefers it because whenever I am on my phone, she reacts—either by doing something she knows is outrageously annoying, or claiming she needs the phone to make a call. As a spoiled only child, she likes being my sole focus—and, luckily, with my mission being to maintain the lowest screen time ever, our values align.
Yet there’s many a mum who can do both! Some people (mostly women) are high capacity people, who can reply to everything and still play with their kids. While I’m starting to realise I’m a very low capacity person—just one thing at a time, PLEASE. Preferably after midday.
And I’ve gotta be honest: I was a Bad Texter before I had a kid. At some stage during my twenties, my relationship with mobile phones turned sour and it’s been a rocky journey ever since.
More and more I want to do a Simon Cowell and not have a phone at all. But then I remember that he’s a wealthy white man with a thousand assistants and probably a home phone. I don’t even have a home phone.
When I’m at my most controversial, my argument remains MUST our time be dictated by Steve Job’s best/worst invention ever? One device take up so much of our lives—often hours per day. We all live with a rectangular, robot dictator and we now consider it normal. I want my time to be dictated by the moon, as Mother Nature intended! Get rid of the phones! While we’re at it, let’s remove all artificial light! Let’s get back to daylight hours only. (Maybe I’m secretly Amish?)
All jokes aside, we could go back to landlines and answering machines—it always looks super cool in nineties roms-coms. OR we could return to writing letters. I genuinely think I would be better at that.
Ultimately, it’s a catch-22. My friends are a priority—but being on my phone is not. My time is precious, and I’ve got to prioritise what matters; yet my friends and family matter above all else. Taking the time to reply shows I care and that I’m listening. (Although, honestly, I’d much rather they all just buy houses on my street so we could pop in whenever we feel like it—there are still a few blocks for sale, gals.)
In a world where everything seems to be about our phones, I feel a strong desire to make it about being present with whose with me. And that might make me a Bad Texter, but I feel like, in lots of other ways, it makes me a good friend.
I’ll try to be better, but at heart, I’m a Bad Texter—probably always will be. Not because I don’t care about the person texting me, but because I care about the person sitting next to me. However, I am truly sorry to all those I regularly let down—please know that next time I’m with you, I’ll ignore everyone else who texts me.