Where does texting fit in the dating game? Do you think it’s amazing, or do you want to have real conversations with people more often? Just to be sure your love life doesn’t start suffering from an SMS addiction, here’s some tips to keep in mind when you find yourself reaching for your phone.
Keep Your Focus On Your Partner
When you’re out on a date, or spending time with your partner, you should always try to keep texting other people out of the situation… preferably you shouldn’t be doing it at all. Of course if there’s an emergency, then your partner will just have to be patient 😛
If you’re looking more at your phone screen than your date, it can not only make you seem rude and not a great person to be around, but it will also make your date more self conscious and they could start second guessing themselves, “Am I being boring? Are they trying to talk to someone more interesting than me?!” – Not great chemistry for dates, and yet I’ve seen it happen time and time again. So be one of the smart ones and leave messaging someone else till later. And if you want to be reeeally memorable, you can say – “Oh it’s ok, just one of my friends but not something that can’t wait”, this type of response will have your partner eating out of your hand for sure 🙂
Don’t Swamp Your Partner
This one goes for every stage of the relationship, whether you’re with someone you’ve just met or if you’ve been dating for a while. Sending message after message without waiting for a response is a definite thing to avoid when it comes to texting and dating.
Sending streams of text messages makes you appear clingy or smothering – not letting your partner have their own space or even that you’re going to be checking up on them. So don’t text them after 20 minutes saying, “you haven’t replied, did you get that last one?”. Instead, if you want to know if they’re getting your texts (and if it’s an important message it’s often a good idea), look into getting a service like text message receipts, they’re usually free and will tell you when the text arrived at the other phone = no more wondering and asking.
Sending Without Thinking
With texts, it’s far to easy to send something that you might regret later. Texts can’t be taken back by you (although sometimes we might wish we could lol), and the person at the other end can do what they want with them, and show them to whoever is around at the time.
So if it’s not someone you really trust yet, be very careful with what you send in the text. This includes sharing something personal or embarrassing, sending pictures you shouldn’t (this one especially), sexual comments that could come across badly, overly romantic texts that could be taken as desperate or clingy, and I’m sure you could add some more to the list…
Important! What I recommend is that you write the text and save it as a draft. Then, 20 minutes later, read the text again with a relaxed mind, and really think about whether or not you want the other person to get that text.
Just remember that people can change, and if you fall out in the future you don’t want them to have some of your dark secrets hiding on their phone.
Text messages are great, and they’re a fun way to keep in regular touch with someone. Keeping the above points in mind will keep your phone as your best friend, and your relationships growing healthily and happily!
In the next blog post get ready for some…
Controversy!
The next post is going to be about texting someone very early in the relationship… and why it should be kept to an absolute minimum!
Until then, what do you think about texting in relationships? Do you think it’s useful or wish that your partner would use the phone to actually call more often? Leave your thoughts below 🙂
