The text message: A subliminal sensation

Texting is a tricky, tricky thing. I'd go as far as to say that it is one of the most important skills to acquire as a socially functioning college student. Whether you're crafting your average friend text or you are feeling a bit more romantically inclined, it seems like the most important things about texts aren't even the words, but the way you go about crafting your proposition and how long it takes you to do so (or how long you consciously decide to take as to not appear needy to members of the opposite sex).

I know that I'm not the only one out there wondering why he hasn't texted me yet, and if he does text me, I know I'm not alone in completely overthinking my response. I know I'm not alone in the sense that I know I'm not the only one who does it, but I'm also not literally alone since I'm making all my friends sit down and help me despite the fact that they have very substantial commitments of their own that don't involve me weighing the pros and cons of saying "hey" versus "hello."

It has been my experience that texting is often less about what you say and more about how you say it. Hypothetically speaking, if a boy were to text me in the mid afternoon on a Friday "What are you up to?" and I text back "Hi. Just hanging out" two hours later, that is a calculated text full of passive aggression with a big smack in the face of NOT NEEDY.

Yet, as many girls would agree with me, sometimes our secret meanings and absurd attempts to craft the perfect text are completely lost by members of the opposite sex. He probably just reads it as: "Hi. Just hanging out" (wonder where he got that idea) and doesn't understand that the timing, tone and order of the text is sending a message in and of itself ... yes, a hidden message within a message ... and we wonder why boys think we are confusing!

Timing: What are the chances that waiting two hours to text a boy back makes him subconsciously think that I have more important things in my life than waiting by my phone for him to text me? Pretty slim, right? Am I just waiting around? Absolutely. Am I going to try to wait two hours to text back even though he probably won't realize the effort that goes into telling yourself over and over not to text? Ding ding ding, you got it again. Unfortunately, I think that all those times I repeated my personal mantra, "I can't text back right away because he'll think I'm needy," over and over again went to waste. My trusty next door neighbor, Ryan Mallory, told me that if a girl texts him back in 30 seconds, "It's hot; it shows that she wants it." I think that he may have ruined the entire foundation upon which I have built my texting existence. On the same note of my supreme texting overanalysis, I'm also realizing that boys don't think like girls, and when he doesn't text you back right away, I don't think he is making a conscious decision to spite you, as I usually am. Perhaps he really was taking a shower, working out, hanging out with his friends and left his phone upstairs or one of the other very valid excuses he could have for not texting you that leave you wondering why he doesn't love you.

Double texting: So when is double texting acceptable? There is nothing like the color coded iPhone text bubbles to show you when you're being needy -- if you have more than two text bubbles before he responds, you're probably a bit too eager. If it's 3 a.m and you've texted "Where are you?" followed by "What are you doing?" followed by "Come over" followed by "What's up?" you've probably crossed the fine line between forgivably needy and outrageously annoying. So there's that sort of situation where double texting is often an unavoidable no-no, but what if you finish the conversation and then three hours later you want to start it up again? Is it ok to ask him what he's up to? That's still two text bubbles in a row, so is it needy?

Our neighbor on the left gave double texting a thumbs down, and our neighbor on the right didn't even know that the term "double texting" existed and could be applied to needy biddies. Both parties are attractive, athletic and fine, upstanding men with just a dash of promiscuity -- exactly the kind of men that Richmond women are aiming for. So I'm a bit confused about the male consensus on the double text. Clearly I don't have the answers -- if I did, I wouldn't be sitting alone on the couch writing this article and growing more and more bitter with each rambling word making the plans to get my spinster badge any day now.

Style: What is the deal with texting punctuation? My general rule is that periods are for when you're trying to sound cold, exclamation points are enthusiastic, semicolons are far too formal for casual texting, but then again I'm a weird grammar freak who always sounds like she's on speed and a central line of sunshine when it comes to texting. A few issues that seem to come up: Your vs. you're -- is it OK to be grammatically incorrect? Obviously not. Simple solution? "Ur" for both. Spelling? Words with double "ss" can have one "s" knocked off and it's still OK. Minor spelling issues are usually ignorable. Drunk spelling mistakes are completely forgivable. Not using adverbs should be punishable by death.

However, after all that rambling, my golden rule is this. Simply put, if you tell a girl that you'll text her, text her. Silence hurts > rejection.