TBH: The Impact of Texting on Romantic Relationships
I was born into the era of “Express Yourself.” When I was a preteen, I distinctly remember a t-shirt that said Express Yourself! in purple glitter that hung at the front of my closet. My vocabulary was rather vast; within the limited space of my closet hung a pink graphic t with a monkey whose face was in a perpetual state of shock, the shirt said OMG! I had another t-shirt that had TTYL emblazoned on the front. The true message behind this seemingly straightforward way of communicating is shrouded by its simplicity. These acronyms were far more than a quick way to communicate with others, they taught me that communication was something to be done quickly, effortlessly, and without much thought.
As I typed away on my iPod touch, I was equipped with all the short-hand texting phrases that made communicating seamless. It was incredibly easy to communicate with my peers, so much so that I overexpressed myself and spoke thoughtlessly. There was a sense of intimacy to be gained through late night text conversations with a classmate. Through virtually messaging one another, we could say things without looking at one another’s faces. This virtual space was largely unmediated by the watchful eyes of adults and unrestricted by your own shyness. As an adult, I don’t use texting in quite the same way. Instead of building relationships over texting, I now use it to upkeep my in-person relationship. My maturity has steered me away from the bizarre way I communicated as a pre-teen.
It’s now 2023 — communicating has never been so frequent in all of human history. There are upsides to this, for example, you could, my dear reader, very easily send this article to everyone in your contacts. The algorithm of the oversaturated media space set aside; these words I am writing hold more power than they ever have thanks to the internet. As a writer, this is both exhilarating and terrifying. The potential impact I have, writing this article right now, is greater than it ever has been. I genuinely hope that one day I look back on this article and go, “I made so many mistakes… it should have been worded this way, no this should have been my pain point, oh now things have to be updated because some current event nullifies half of what I had said.” As time goes on, I will become more refined as a person and as a writer. I will hold different beliefs and live in a different time — yet these words I am writing will occupy the same space all my future words will.
Back in the day, your message could only travel as far as your voice could carry it. For better or for worse: silence consumed your every word. Often your stupidity dissipated into knowing air that followed you so long as you breathed it. In order for your message to survive, it had to be much more premeditated than it is now. The ease by which I could communicate as a young kid led to over-expressing myself so that my every waking thought continues to exist somewhere beyond my grasp. In my generation, we are haunted by the word vomit hacked up by our immature brains.
Around age 12 is when idiotic ideas invade our minds like parasites. These notions could be the cause of our dumb demise. Luckily they largely dissolve into decisions we neither remember nor regret due to the lack of control we had over our little lives. Sure, every pool of vomit has the potential of becoming a boogyman who could come back to haunt us in the future. This boogeyman is simply a figment of our imagination, a being crafted by scary afterschool specials about the permanent nature of the internet. Perhaps our past texted words aren’t as profoundly horrible as we think. Or perhaps they will come and mug us of all our accomplishments right when we least expect them to. Who fucking knows. I mean I’d think that my half-baked observations about the world were unoriginal, and laughable at best. If my old social media posts and text messages were cookies, I would think them to be concocted using a Pillsbury mix but having come out tasting more like play-dough. The product is unworthy of further attention because it doesn’t amount to much. I don’t believe that anything my child self wrote on the internet will come back to haunt me. Whatever little Abbey said most likely isn’t profound enough to really mean anything at all. However, I am curious about the role texting has in my current and past relationships. This is a much more interesting subject whereas the potential impact of old social media posts is a tired subject.
When I text my current boyfriend, I am very straightforward. We aren’t very flowery in how we virtually communicate with one another. When scrolling through our messages you aren’t going to find a lot of unnecessary conversation. This isn’t because we aren’t affectionate towards each other, rather we are affectionate when we can fully experience each other: in person. Here is an excerpt from our texts so you understand the nature of our virtual communication:
Me: “I got my period”
Him: *thumbs up emoji
Me: “Can you bring me chocolate”
Him: “Course”
Me: “What’s taking you so long?”
Him: “Long line at the register”
Me: “Ugh”
*silence*
Texting used to be much more fundamental to my “romantic” relationships in a very immature way. In the past, I fell in love with a figment of my imagination through texting the boys in my class. We would exchange suggestive messages in a way that made my early pubescent brain go mad in imaginings. I fell in love with a phantom: a young man of my own making, an idealized– heavily fictive version of who they actually were.
“Hey” Could be read as a sexy, deep-throated greeting — or a placid social nicety, which served as a thoughtless exchange and nothing further. Regardless, every text I received served a profound purpose that I assigned to it. The boy was a beast of my own imaginings. He was a main player in the Olympics of my inbox.
Me: “Hey do you want to play a game?”
Him: “What game?”
Me: “TBH”
Him: “Ur like a C”
When I wasn’t playing in the self-esteem tournament by asking boys to rate my attractiveness on a scale; I was interpreting boring ass conversations in outlandish ways.
Me: “Hi”
Him: “Sup”
Me: “Nm”
Him: “Same”
Me: “Wbu?”
Him: “Oh I said nm”
Me: “Nice”
In my wild fantasy, this dude wassitting on the couch beside me. He was truly empathetic to my boredom. He really understood me. I would text him further. Clearly, this man was dying to converse with me further.
Me: “So whats your favorite color?”
Him: “Blue wbu”
Me: “Same. Or purple”
Him: “Nice”
Despite my imagination, these conversations quickly grew boring to me. These interactions were stale with normalcy. So I decided to throw Pilsbury to the wind and potentially make a fool of myself. I opted to play a texting game that was far from cookie-cutter — a social situation of my own concocting.
Me: “What porn do you like?”
Him: “Normal wbu”
Me: “Normal?”
Him: “Whatever comes up. Wbu?”
Me: “Lesbian”
Him: “Hot are u gay”
Me: “Maybe idk”
In retrospect, I wonder if anyone else formulated conversation based upon Instagram text banners as I had. Did other preteens communicate with one another in this way? I would assume so. I remember during sleepovers, my friends and I would take turns coming up with sexy text messages to send to boys. Usually, these were people from Omegle or some other anonymous website where we could say whatever we wanted without backlash. It was a way to experience something sexual together in a safe, detached way. We were all navigating the internet on our own accord, trying to understand the sexual aspect of ourselves by interpreting porn. We were in search of intimacy, of a connection to others we weren’t getting in person due to our age.
I don’t think that I could have discovered quite as much about sexuality as fast as I did without the internet. However, I think that I was quite confused for a long time. Now that I have experienced my sexuality in a well-rounded way, I can confidently say that I was profoundly affected by what I thought sex was and not what it actually is. Texting is no longer a foundational component of my romantic relationship, it now serves a function. My boyfriend and I communicate with each other via text in a way that helps us to connect in real life. My relationship is real. I see my boyfriend as a real person — he isn’t a figment of my imagination — for better or worse.
Me: “Hey do you want to play a game?”
Boyfriend: “A game?”
Me: “TBH”
Him: “What?”
Me: “RHD”
Him: “Im confused”
Me: “Don’t worry abt it”
