What has come of the new technological dating world but less and less actual voice and face interaction and more texts, emails and Facebook relationship status changes!?! It seems like the more a person puts themselves out there to be vulnerable, technology is constantly competing to make that difficult.
Fewer people want to actually meet up for face to face physical interaction (unless we are talking about a booty call), they rather send a plethora of text messages over a two hour period than have a twenty minute phone conversation or they'd rather send a tweet or Facebook message to ask someone a question. As much as I enjoy the conveniences of technology, I also despise it. It has taken the personal affect out of communication. You don't see the non-verbal cues or body language, tone and the way a message is portrayed can be completely different than intended. Which brings me to my one burning question: Why do people send or respond to maintenance texts?
In the dating world, as I am sure many of you are aware, technology has made it way too convenient to have a multitude of prospects versus focusing time, energy and effort into one particular person. While the options are nice to have, how can you really know whether a person is worth your full time and attention when you have multiple people competing for it? How do you handle all of the prospects? How do you determine which person is worthy of more than the maintenance text?
I get a kick of saying 'maintenance text!' My girl friends and some of my guy friends come to me for advice on dating and we begin to discuss their levels of communication. Then, like a black cloud out of the sky... they have either sent the maintenance text or responded to one.
For those of you wondering... what a maintenance text is, it is a text message you either send or receive that requires no response to the receiver other than to say, "I took a second of my time to acknowledge you BUT I do not require a text back." Maintaining communication with another person just in case your star player falls through or the sender is having a rough day and needs a little more attention and their ego stroked, they know they can send a text and you will respond! I am telling you, you do not want to be the recipient of a maintenance text and don't be tacky and send one.
Personally, if I send a text you will know that I am directly sending the text to you. I will address you by your name, call you a nickname, pet name or reference something that you and I have talked about! You will never see me send or respond to the average:
- 'Good Morning'
- 'Hope you have a good day'
- 'Good Afternoon'
- 'Good Evening'
- 'Hope you had a good day/night'
- 'Good Night'
These are the classic examples of maintenance texts. "Hi, you thought I was thinking of you but I really selected six other people to receive the same text... wonder who will respond first?!?" Yes people, the people sending these maintenance texts actually think like that. Not all, but many do! So, before you go getting excited and responding to a message that isn't personal to you, doesn't ask for a response or have any actual association to your existence to the sender... don't feed in to the need to stroke another person's ego. Let them wear their big boy/girl underwear or panties and learn to understand that people are not placed on earth just to entertain them!
Anyhow, I had to say something about the infamous 'maintenance texts' because a few friends of mine and I were just talking about how pathetic they are and how people really think this stuff works, or for the responders you actually believe that you are important.
