Silence speaks volumes

The other day I sent a man a message, sharing details of a contact. “I was just thinking of you actually,” he wrote back.

“What were you thinking?” I said, hoping it was something nice, because I have an ego.

He sent me a picture of a peach. Then he sent me a picture of an aubergine.

I screamed and dropped my phone.

Now, if you think this demonstrated a healthy concern for my diet, for me getting my five-a-day, then perhaps I can clear up any confusion by misquoting former US president Bill Clinton: “I have never had sexual relations with that man.”

And there you have it. We are living in the age of the emoji, where a picture really does paint a thousand words.

Rude fruit aside, of late I find I’m a little addicted to emojis. This is curious because I can confidently state that I had never, ever sent an emoticon, the forerunner to the emoji.

The difference? An emoticon is the smiley face you type into your keyboard character-by-character when sending messages, using semicolons for winking eyes and brackets for smiles and frowns.

To me, emoticons seemed ridiculous because if you’re typing anyway, using punctuation (hopefully!), why waste time making pictures from brackets? Just state what you mean in words, as intended – or so I thought.

But then emoticons morphed into emojis – ready-made icons, fat and yellow and crying with laughter, or blowing kisses, or a smiling turd, or a lady doing the flamenco, or a pig’s snout, or, indeed, a swollen, purple aubergine – and here we are.

I seem barely able to send a message from my phone without dropping emojis.

For instance, a friend and I never say “Trump” anymore; instead we SMS the picture of a farty puff of wind, although we may need to amend that to the green vomit face or blazing inferno.

A throwaway text is acknowledged with an appropriate smiley, be it a sad face or a unicorn. I send lightning to denote bad weather or when I’m angry...

And now I’m starting to miss emojis when I’m writing seriously, for work. *worried face*

Enough now! How then did I reply to the aubergine guy?

I didn’t. Sometimes silence speaks volumes too.