Textiquette: Your Guide to Texting Etiquette

We’ve all been in awkward situations via cellular text message.  Whether it’s the very personal text from an unknown number to the acquaintance whom you felt obliged to give your number to and now refuses to leave you alone. Perhaps every girl in the digital age needs a couple handy rules of thumb to fall back on during these uncomfortable situations.
 
1.  Running Out of Texts
Not everyone has unlimited texting and sometimes our text capabilities are severely limited. When you are running low on text messages, it is not the easiest situation to handle.
The Rule: Send out the alert as a facebook status when you start running low on texts. Sooner is better than later. Then, send out a text to your closest friends/the people who text you the most letting them know. If anyone texts you after that, remember it’s probably an honest mistake and call them and remind them of your situation. If you’re the one who always gets caught forgetting that your buddy has text limitations, see if you can change something in their contact info. For the friend I need to be careful about texting, I write their cell number in as their work number so that a different icon shows up in my contacts and I remember not to text that number.
 
2. “Did You Get My Text?”
You know that person who follows up if you don’t answer a text within a couple minutes? Enough said.
The Rule: Do not become this person! The only acceptable time when this is allowed is in an emergency, meaning a 911 type of situation when you need people to answer so you know they’re okay. If you really need a reply from someone, try to wait at least 10 minutes. Remember that this person’s phone may have low battery, be on silent, or have an unreliable provider. If this happens to you, you may want to go the passive-aggressive route and just ignore all their texts, but it’s really better to explain that you tend to keep your phone on silent or that you have a less reliable provider at the places that you frequent. This will, hopefully, deter the did-you-get-my-texter from spamming up your inbox.
 
3. “Who is this again?”
Someone texted you and from the sounds of the text, he or she seems to think you all are pretty good buddies. Good enough to have each other’s numbers. Unfortunately, upon meeting this person, you apparently did not, and you don’t know how this person got your number because you have no idea who he or she is.
The Rule: Reply with a request asking for the person’s name saying something that implies you lost your head. Something like, “Hey, I just woke up and I didn’t put your number in earlier. I’m a little groggy so would you help me out and text me your name before I embark on a sleepyheaded conversation with you and make an idiot out of myself?” Injecting a little humor into the situation will avoid the person feeling offended, especially if you admit the mix up was your fault, but for reasons that are completely understandable. If someone didn’t store your number in their phone right away, be understanding and remember it happens to the best of us, often through no fault of our own.
 
4. The Dreaded Mass Text Seasonal Greeting
This is what happens when Thanksgiving, Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. rolls around and one enthusiastic friend sends a “Happy Thanksgiving/New Year/Kwanzaa/Easter” text to every person in his/her contacts list.
The Rule: If the sender is you, stop it! Send those texts to your good buddies and not to every Sally and Joe you know! Not only does it put a recipient you don’t really know in an awkward position, but some people may not have unlimited texting capabilities and unless they’re close enough that you actually text them regularly, you may not know that. If you are the recipient, respond with a polite “Happy fill-in-the-blank to you, too” if you are fairly close, and it you’re not close, don’t feel bothered to reply. This is a non-committal thing, and if he or she sends it to you without really knowing you, take it as a compliment and move on. The sender doesn’t need every single person to reply, and you don’t know them well enough to justify contributing to their self-inflicted inbox clog.
 
5. Mass Invite Ambiguity
Someone you don’t know that well invited you to go somewhere, but this text was sent to a bunch of other people, and you’re not entirely sure if the sender meant to send it to you. You don’t know whether or not to respond or whether or not to go.
The Rule: People invite people to things with a pretty high degree of intent. When people plan events they take a certain amount of care in inviting others, knowing that awkward situations are a definite possibility. Assume that this person sent this to you with enough intent to require a reply. If you feel uncomfortable about going to the event, just reply a quick “no thanks, I’ve got something else I’ve gotta do.” Otherwise, you are leaving the sender hanging if it was completely intentional, and if it was an accident, the sender will know about it and move on knowing that you have something else to do and everyone avoided an awkward situation.
 
6. The Spammer
This person consistently texts you day and night despite the fact that you’ve tried your best hint dropping techniques, like the long gap between replies or the one word answers to the sender’s barrage of conversation starters.
The Rule: First, introspect for a little while. Is this person really all that bad for trying to get to know you? Is this person really that annoying from what you know about him/her that it warrants you trying so hard to avoid talking? Maybe this is a really cool person who recognizes your coolness and just wants to be your friend. If this person is straight up creeping, or shows blatant disregard for how you feel, then you may proceed to part two. Part two is a chat with the person preferably face to face, but possibly by phone explaining that you do not appreciate this person’s spamming and that despite that fact that you know that these are just attempts to get to know you better, the manner in which this desire is being expressed is one that gives you the wrong impression of the person. Welcome to the art of expressing annoyance without sounding like an asshole and turning a negative into a positive.