Love in the era of the textationship

In our modern, technophile society, we’ve equated technological advances with progress. How else to classify an application like Facebook that lets us stalk our exes without them knowing? Or YouTube, where the drunken videos of your bachelorette party can be uploaded and stored for posterity (and potential employers)?

Technology has become so integrated in our lives that we’ve even introduced it into our relationships. So much so, in fact, that AT&T has published a Dating Textionary to help define the terms used in a textationship (“a relationship based solely on texting”). Some of the best ones include: BlasText, which is when someone sends a late-night booty call to multiple people, hoping one of them will take the romantic bait; Mistext, when a text message meant for one person is mistakenly sent to someone else (as when, over the Christmas holidays, I wrote a text for a love interest that began “Big sexy man” and went on from there, then accidently sent it to my best friend); and Text Away Your Dignity, which is pretty much self-explanatory.

In fact, I think a lot of us have gotten caught up in texting away our dignity. When we’re hidden behind the veil of distance and digitally produced sentiment, it’s easy to confess things we’d otherwise keep to ourselves (AT&T calls this textibitionism). Contrarily, there is also an element of dishonesty to texting, a sort of built-in passive-aggression, that lets people be less than forthright in their 160 characters. Sure, it eliminates a certain amount of awkwardness, like the sting of rejection, say, but it also allows people to give less than 100 percent.

For instance, a good friend of mine who is petite and fiery and beautiful has been in an on-again, off-again fling with a man who works at her restaurant. She hesitates to call what they have a relationship and prefers the term “friends with benefits” instead. It’s fraught with texting, whatever it is. When he’s interested in late-night action, he sends her a message. When she’s feeling the same, she’ll send him one back. The exchange is easy, uncomplicated, and ultimately doomed. Lately, her texts have gone unanswered, or he’ll reply after several days. She’s left in the lurch, wondering if her message went through. But of course, in situations like these, it’s not the technology that’s the problem, but our own human frailties.

The truth is, textationships are based on cowardice. They’re for people who don’t have the gumption to ask someone out in person, who don’t have the wherewithal to withstand rejection. No one likes being

the game. When relationships are based on texting, there’s hardly a let down, and there’s rarely a direct confrontation. Which lets people like my friend’s boy toy off the hook too easily. Texting doesn’t demand explanations.

Not to say texting has no part in a relationship. But there’s a world of communication that exists between the cell phone and the bedroom. Perhaps we’d all do well to be a little less textual. 

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