Texting

tech30528 said:

Clearly not at all.

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I'm thinking that he's thinking, "I'll do it this way, then I won't have to deal with her wrath and/or emotions, and she'll be calmed down by the time I get back."

:lol: Yeah... no.

radcen said:

Or he may have.

Based on what you say here it sounds like he may have been flirty, but also that she may be needy, and being needy mistook his flirtations as genuine interest.

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As I understand it, he was texting her every day telling her how much he cared.

Would you not think that someone who claimed to that might actually want to keep up with you at some point? Even if he really was just flirting, if someone took time out of their normal life every day to flirt with you, might you not think they might want to spend time with you?

Everyone that's saying texting is bad doesn't know how to text. We have emoticons for a reason yo.

Of course face to face is better than texting, but calling someone is pretty aggressive. Calling is a poor imitation of face to face communication, whilst texting is a completely different medium, and it's pretty great for what it is. Outside of work use/family (who I skype as they're abroad), there are only a couple of people that I would even think about calling. Everyone else gets a text. And even the few people that I would call I text more anyway. The only reason I call them is because the reason I need to talk to them involves a back and forth that is too annoying/long to figure out via text.

Nilly said:

Everyone that's saying texting is bad doesn't know how to text. We have emoticons for a reason yo.

Of course face to face is better than texting, but calling someone is pretty aggressive. Calling is a poor imitation of face to face communication, whilst texting is a completely different medium, and it's pretty great for what it is. Outside of work use/family (who I skype as they're abroad), there are only a couple of people that I would even think about calling. Everyone else gets a text. And even the few people that I would call I text more anyway. The only reason I call them is because the reason I need to talk to them involves a back and forth that is too annoying/long to figure out via text.

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I find this kind of spooky.

MaggieD said:

I find this kind of spooky.

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We're a generation who was brought up talking to our friends on instant messenger, and skypeing our families from thousands of miles from each other. Of course millennials value face to face conversation, but we're pretty nifty with our fingers too. Talking on the phone without the seeing the face is a poor imitation of actual face to face contact and a little bit creepy. Texting avoids that by being simple and to the point.

face to face > texting > calling

i guess i am old fashioned

i prefer face to face

if that is impossible, then it has to be a phone call

phones allow inflection, raising and lowering of volumes, emotion, and it is way more personal

another way that shows i am a dinosaur

MaggieD said:

I find this kind of spooky.

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Ehhh, I kind of see where he's coming from.

I will not have any serious conversation with someone on either text or call. If face-to-face is not an option, my next choice is Skype. But only if face-to-face is literally impossible.

Voice calls have some distinct disadvantages. Yes, you can hear someone's vocal inflection, but you still can't see their face, which means you're still missing out on a lot of the subtext of the conversation.

The plus side of typing or text is that you get time to consider what you're saying carefully. It's still inadequate for serious conversation, but this is something you can't do on a voice call.

Voice call where you're missing out on facial cues and have no time to think, or texting where you have time to think but have no voice or facial cues?

Both suck. But I can understand why some people hate calling. I'm not a huge fan of it myself.

Still, I'd never text for serious conversation. And I wouldn't call either.

For me, face-to-face > Skype > text and call.

Nilly said:

We're a generation who was brought up talking to our friends on instant messenger, and skypeing our families from thousands of miles from each other. Of course millennials value face to face conversation, but we're pretty nifty with our fingers too. Talking on the phone without the seeing the face is a poor imitation of actual face to face contact and a little bit creepy. Texting avoids that by being simple and to the point.

face to face > texting > calling

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How do you know if they're lying to you when using emoticons when you don't have at least voice inflection?

SmokeAndMirrors said:

Ehhh, I kind of see where he's coming from.

I will not have any serious conversation with someone on either text or call. If face-to-face is not an option, my next choice is Skype. But only if face-to-face is literally impossible.

Voice calls have some distinct disadvantages. Yes, you can hear someone's vocal inflection, but you still can't see their face, which means you're still missing out on a lot of the subtext of the conversation.

The plus side of typing or text is that you get time to consider what you're saying carefully. It's still inadequate for serious conversation, but this is something you can't do on a voice call.

Voice call where you're missing out on facial cues and have no time to think, or texting where you have time to think but have no voice or facial cues?

Both suck. But I can understand why some people hate calling. I'm not a huge fan of it myself.

Still, I'd never text for serious conversation. And I wouldn't call either.

For me, face-to-face > Skype > text and call.

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That's the key to this whole thread... important conversations.

Calling isn't ideal, but it's better than texting if the subject matter is important. You should only do a call if something like distance or other barriers make in-person impossible.

radcen said:

That's the key to this whole thread... important conversations.

Calling isn't ideal, but it's better than texting if the subject matter is important. You should only do a call if something like distance or other barriers make in-person impossible.

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Yeah. If face-to-face and Skype are BOTH impossible... man, hard choice.

I think I'd choose email or other long-form written communication for the initial part of the conversation (laying out the issue as we both see it), then move to a voice call for the particulars.

But I don't think at any point I would choose texting. It's just inadequate. It lacks the precision of long-form, and lacks the vocal cues of voice. It just sucks.

SmokeAndMirrors said:

Yeah. If face-to-face and Skype are BOTH impossible... man, hard choice.

I think I'd choose email or other long-form written communication for the initial part of the conversation (laying out the issue as we both see it), then move to a voice call for the particulars.

But I don't think at any point I would choose texting. It's just inadequate. It lacks the precision of long-form, and lacks the vocal cues of voice. It just sucks.

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Yep.

I've never done Skype, so it never occurs to me, but I would do it if need be.

radcen said:

Yep.

I've never done Skype, so it never occurs to me, but I would do it if need be.

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You get both voice and face, which is nice.

But the conversation tends to be a bit more jerky because there's a lag time between when you speak and when the other person hears you. It's only a fraction of a second, but it makes more of a difference than you might think.

It also sucks that the physical aspect is lacking. You can't hug and make up. Again, this makes more of a difference than you might think. There's that little extra bit of closure that's just not there.

Email is good for initially laying out the conversation, but it does become exhausting and time consuming to have these big long emails and you start getting sloppy after a while, so Skype is better.

I've done it out of necessity (one of the hard parts about living abroad). It's not great, but better than the alternatives, if face-to-face isn't an option.

radcen said:

How do you know if they're lying to you when using emoticons when you don't have at least voice inflection?

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Eh emoticons aren't used all that much actually (well not for me + my friends really). They're often used kinda tongue-in-cheek. Punctuation means a hell of a lot when it comes to texting. A period at the end of a text can often indicate someone is mad at you. A question mark can be used when not asking a question to indicate an uptone inflection. I don't use exclamation points a lot (being English my texting style is kinda deadpan) but a lot of the college students out here in AZ use them all the time. A tactical 'haha' or 'lol' can be inserted in which then affects the previous or next sentence (depending on context). You can often tell if someone wants to keep a conversation going by seeing how open ended their texts are. Finally, length of time to respond is also a factor, especially as in a lot of the new apps you can see what time the recipient saw your previous text, and often you can see when they're writing a response (in iMessage, an ellipse will appear when they're typing back, and will disappear if they stop. So if you see an ellipse then it disappears, you know they typed something out but then decided not to send it, which depending on the context could mean a few different things). There really is some nuance in there, and as crazy as it sounds there are regional differences in texting style, or at least age differences.

after reading through this, bottom line is, do what works for you, if you don't know what works for you, you suck at communication and best learn

each to his own