Love, loathing over unanswered texts
Amy Alkon
Question: My boyfriend will text if he’s running late but says texting “isn’t real communication.” He says that if I need to talk, I should call him. I get that anything serious should be discussed via phone.
However, we live separately, and sometimes I just want to reach out in a small way with a funny photo or a word or two and get a word or two back. When he doesn’t respond or grudgingly responds a day later, I get more and more hurt and angry and want to break up with him. I know he cares about me. Am I being unreasonable? — Upset
Answer: We get it: You spend an entire day making a small but very accurate Voodoo doll of him and then have to dispose of it when he finally texts back.
There are many who share your boyfriend’s techno-snobbery, claiming that texting isn’t “real communication” (perhaps because it doesn’t require Socratic oratory or chasing a goose to pluck a quill). But say one person texts “i love u” and the other texts back, “k.” That communicates plenty.
It’s one thing if you’re sending him iTunes user agreement-length texts and expecting him to text back in kind. But this sort of texted “yoo-hoo!” you’re sending him is one of the seemingly unimportant reach-outs that relationships researcher John Gottman calls “bids for connection.” These “bids” are attempts — often made in small and mundane ways — to get your partner’s attention, affection, humor, or support.
Gottman observes that these are effectively little “trust tests” leading to “a tiny turning point — an opportunity, or a lost opportunity, for connection.”
Explain the “bid for connection” thing so your boyfriend can understand why it’s so important that he come through for you — or, rather, 4 u. But also keep in mind, as I write in “Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck,” that “technology makes a nearly instant response possible; it doesn’t mandate it.”
Let him know that you aren’t looking to start some relationship reign of terror — like if he doesn’t text you back in 60 seconds, his phone and/ or the relationship will explode.
It’s just that seeing him making an effort would mean a lot to you. As Gottman points out, you do that not with little daily shows of love. In this case, it’s those three little ... uh, letters — LOL — after you text him a cat with a gunslinger mustache or a dachshund in a lobster suit.