offense. However, seeing it from the other side is eye-opening. When your phone is filled with that stuff, generic messages come off as super dull and lazy. They make the recipient feel like she’s not very special or important to you.
Oh, and in case you’re a dude and you’ve never seen what your “Hey” texts look like when you send them, serially, here’s another post from Straight White Boys Texting:
THE SECRETARY PROBLEM
Another irritating situation that plagues both men and women is the endless texting banter that never leads to a meet in the real world. So many people trying to make a connection wind up spending so much time typing and typing and trying to schedule things that eventually whatever spark may have been there diminishes. At our focus groups we heard countless variations of an interaction that goes something like this:
Four days later.
Nine days later.
Six days later.
At this point the conversation ends. It’s amazing to see this exchange go from its fun and flirtatious opening to just plain fizzling out. And you can see how it happens: They go from enjoying the banter to trying to schedule something concrete, and all of a sudden they’re acting like secretaries.
The other annoying thing about this scheduling banter is that both parties are sometimes left wondering whether the person is actually busy or pretending to be busy, leading to more confusion and frustration. When you’re involved in this kind of back-and-forth, it’s hard not to wonder whether the other person even has interest.
THE ENDLESS BACK-AND-FORTH
Scheduling chatter is merely one of the many forms of useless banter that makes dating in the digital age so frustrating, especially for women over twenty-five, since they have less patience for constant text exchanges. Another form, which is especially common among the younger gentlemen out there, emerges when a dude is just too shy to actually ask the other person to do something. Instead of negotiating times and places, they wind up exchanging meaningless texts ad nauseam.
I can’t tell you how many girls I met who were clearly interested in a guy who, instead of asking them out, just kept sucking them into more mundane banter with gems like “So where do you do your laundry” What follows are ten back-and-forths about laundry detergent. (“Yeah, I recently switched to fragrance-free detergent. It’s been FANTASTIC.”)
At a stand-up show I did in Tulsa, I met a young man named Cody. He came onstage and we read through his text messages. There were literally twenty messages of useless, nervous banter. It was clear this woman was interested, but poor Cody simply wasn’t asking her to do anything. I told Cody he should just ask her out. He texted her, “Hey Ally. Have you been to Hawaiian Brian’s? Let me know if you want to go this week?” Within two hours she said yes, and they enjoyed a delicious meal at Hawaiian Brian’s the next week.
On a side note, is there any place on earth that sounds like it has a more chill vibe than Hawaiian Brian’s? Or for that matter, is there a chiller name than “Hawaiian Brian”? “Damnit! Hawaiian Brian just stole my debit card and liquidated all my bank accounts!” I can’t ever see someone having to utter that sentence.
GRAMMAR/SPELLING
In any interviews we did, whenever bad grammar or spelling popped up, it was an immediate and major turnoff. Women seemed to view it as a clear indicator that a dude was a bozo. Let’s say you are a handsome, charming stud who really made a great first impression. If your first text is “Hey we shud hang out sumtimez,” you may just destroy any goodwill you have built up.
On our subreddit we were told a story about a man who was dating a spectacular woman but eventually broke up with her. He said it went downhill once he texted her asking if she had heard about a party at a mutual friend’s house. Her response was “Hoo?” Not “Who,” but “Hoo.” He kept trying to
Oh, and in case you’re a dude and you’ve never seen what your “Hey” texts look like when you send them, serially, here’s another post from Straight White Boys Texting:
THE SECRETARY PROBLEM
Another irritating situation that plagues both men and women is the endless texting banter that never leads to a meet in the real world. So many people trying to make a connection wind up spending so much time typing and typing and trying to schedule things that eventually whatever spark may have been there diminishes. At our focus groups we heard countless variations of an interaction that goes something like this:
Four days later.
Nine days later.
Six days later.
At this point the conversation ends. It’s amazing to see this exchange go from its fun and flirtatious opening to just plain fizzling out. And you can see how it happens: They go from enjoying the banter to trying to schedule something concrete, and all of a sudden they’re acting like secretaries.
The other annoying thing about this scheduling banter is that both parties are sometimes left wondering whether the person is actually busy or pretending to be busy, leading to more confusion and frustration. When you’re involved in this kind of back-and-forth, it’s hard not to wonder whether the other person even has interest.
THE ENDLESS BACK-AND-FORTH
Scheduling chatter is merely one of the many forms of useless banter that makes dating in the digital age so frustrating, especially for women over twenty-five, since they have less patience for constant text exchanges. Another form, which is especially common among the younger gentlemen out there, emerges when a dude is just too shy to actually ask the other person to do something. Instead of negotiating times and places, they wind up exchanging meaningless texts ad nauseam.
I can’t tell you how many girls I met who were clearly interested in a guy who, instead of asking them out, just kept sucking them into more mundane banter with gems like “So where do you do your laundry” What follows are ten back-and-forths about laundry detergent. (“Yeah, I recently switched to fragrance-free detergent. It’s been FANTASTIC.”)
At a stand-up show I did in Tulsa, I met a young man named Cody. He came onstage and we read through his text messages. There were literally twenty messages of useless, nervous banter. It was clear this woman was interested, but poor Cody simply wasn’t asking her to do anything. I told Cody he should just ask her out. He texted her, “Hey Ally. Have you been to Hawaiian Brian’s? Let me know if you want to go this week?” Within two hours she said yes, and they enjoyed a delicious meal at Hawaiian Brian’s the next week.
On a side note, is there any place on earth that sounds like it has a more chill vibe than Hawaiian Brian’s? Or for that matter, is there a chiller name than “Hawaiian Brian”? “Damnit! Hawaiian Brian just stole my debit card and liquidated all my bank accounts!” I can’t ever see someone having to utter that sentence.
GRAMMAR/SPELLING
In any interviews we did, whenever bad grammar or spelling popped up, it was an immediate and major turnoff. Women seemed to view it as a clear indicator that a dude was a bozo. Let’s say you are a handsome, charming stud who really made a great first impression. If your first text is “Hey we shud hang out sumtimez,” you may just destroy any goodwill you have built up.
On our subreddit we were told a story about a man who was dating a spectacular woman but eventually broke up with her. He said it went downhill once he texted her asking if she had heard about a party at a mutual friend’s house. Her response was “Hoo?” Not “Who,” but “Hoo.” He kept trying to
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