Dear Her,
We need to talk.
In the past I’ve discouraged you from utilizing text message for anything important when it comes to your love life. I believe you finally kicked the habit when your autocomplete told your last boyfriend you’d be late meeting him because you were “pregnant with Sam and already feeling a little nauseous.”
I know, I know. “Pregaming” really should be programmed into all phone dictionaries by now.
Yet in light of recent events, I have added one exception to my very strict (yet impeccably well thought out) rules on phone etiquette, a little something I like to call the Mercy Text.
I’ll show you what I mean.
Take for instance, that date you went on this past Friday. I know you were expecting a whole lot of fun fun fun fun, as promised by that budding young ingenue Rebecca Black. But instead you ended up with a level of awkwardness on par with the Caucasian dancing styles Ms. Black’s infamous “friend in the pink top.”
So what if your date turned out to have conversational skills more underdeveloped than Justin Bieber’s testosterone levels? You just chalk it up to a dud and keep an eye out for the next piece of manmeat to come your way.
That is, unless Mr. Dud had a better time than you did. Yes, there are few things more tragic than a bad (for you but not for him) first date. And there are few things more annoying than the texts that follow. Precious gems like…
What’s up :D
How’s the rest of your weekend going? :-)
I saw you in the library earlier. Doing homework? ;P
And before you’ve even had time to think about what you’re doing, you find yourself going along with it– while still responding to his texts in the fewest possible words to discourage further conversation.
Oh not too much. Lots of work.
No complaints.
Yep.
Because it’s wrong to break a boy’s heart via text. Better to drop subtle hints over the course of the next week until he gets the message, right?
Hell no. You see, right now that poor sap is but a little pet hamster, and his feelings for you are a small tumor growing on his heart. And the longer you let that tumor grow, the worse it’s going to be for him and his little hamster feelings. Even as much as it might pain you to do it — even if you might wake up in cold sweats screaming, “No Mommy! Leave my hamster alone!” — you’ve got to put that little sucker to sleep.
Send him a mercy text.
Nothing too fancy. Maybe something like, “Thank you for going out with me last Friday Mr. Hampster-Man, but I didn’t really feel any sparks between us. I’m sorry.” In the end, it’s better to rip the Band-Aid off than to wait too long and deal with the sticky black crap it leaves behind.
I’m not exactly sure what the sticky black crap is in that analogy.
Unless by “sticky” I mean “catchy.” And by “black” I mean “Rebecca.” And by “crap” I mean “Friday.”
God, I’m in the mood to listen to that song on loop for a few days. You good dealing with your love life ’til next week?
BALLIN.
Your GBF,
Scott