Long gone are the days when you had 45-minute phone conversations with your middle-school crush. Today, you’d be lucky to have a 45-minute text session with your (moderately) cute lab partner from Organic Chemistry 1 about the molecular makeup of carbon. Texts are the new form of communication, and with that comes a lot of new questions: How long is too long to wait before responding? How soon is too soon? Should I send a smiley face or kissy face emoji?
You spend countless hours laboring over how to best express your feelings via a tiny iMessage bubble. But for every good text you send, there are always a few you wish you could take back. Here’s a list of five types of texts you should rethink before hitting ‘Send’:
The Drunk Text (you should not be consuming alcohol unless you’re 21 years old)It happens. Thoughts get cloudy after one too many shots, and something you’d never say sober seems like the best thought you’ve ever had. At best, you end up sending your best friends several texts at 2 a.m. about how much you just “loveeeeeeee” him or her. At worst, you end up inviting your ex-boyfriend to “hang out.” There’s nothing worse than rereading a text conversation and realizing you misspelled every other word in a text message to your mother. Avoid the embarrassment, and keep your phone in your purse before you hit Midtown; you’ll save yourself a lot of day-after regrets.
The Novel If I have to scroll more than once to read your text, it’s a novel. You know what I’m talking about… Those texts that take you 15 minutes to write and 20 minutes to read? Those are novels. Stop pretending you’re Nicholas Sparks, and just pick up the phone! Telling your exciting story over the phone is a lot easier and more interesting than trying to text it all out. Keep your messages short and sweet.
The Selfie The front camera has totally revolutionized picture-taking. We even have a new, dictionary-recognized word thanks to this lovely invention: selfie. While I enjoy taking a selfie as much as the next girl, I try to limit my selfie texts to a bare minimum. I blow up Snapchat with endless seflies of me doing completely pointless activities (usually eating popsicles at The Hyppo), but sending a selfie over text means that person will have this picture for eternity. Save yourself the trouble, and only send the traditional style photos via text. (PSA: selfies include mirror pictures, too.)
The Accidental Text This might be the worst kind of bad text. It’s when you mean to send a text to your sorority sister about your crazy hook-up last night, but accidentally send it in your family group chat. It’s an easy mix-up, but it should definitely be avoided. Even worse is when you’re about to send a gossip-y text to your BFF and accidentally send it to the person the text is about. If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be to double check who you’re texting before you send any messages!
The Nude I wish this wasn’t something that needed to be said, but it is, especially after seeing what’s happened recently with some of my favorite celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence. I whole-heartedly support feeling confident in your skin and feeling confident enough to want to share your body with someone else. But the picture you sent to your high school boyfriend when you were dating — the one he promised he’d never send to anyone — usually ends up in the hands of someone it probably shouldn’t. We can now screenshot Snapchats, upload pictures to the Internet and mass text photos in less than a second. Instead of sending a picture through the phone, invite your significant other over to let him (or her) see your confidence in person. I guarantee you they’ll enjoy that a lot more.
Texts are a great way to quickly let someone know you’re thinking about them, make plans or keep your parents up to date on your life without having to chat on the phone for two hours. By remembering to stay away from these bad types of texts, you can ensure that your messages will be regret-free.
READ ALSO: Boy Talk: An Inside Look at the Male Texting Game