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Written by Lisa Toline, asap
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Tuesday, 13 February 2007 |
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 Carlie Gallo sits in a darkened concert balcony, her face illuminated by the light of her BlackBerry.
She’s waiting with her sister and friend for the singer Lily Allen to take the stage, but the 22-year-old’s thumbs are flying as she sends text updates to her boyfriend.
“I made him switch to my network,” she says.
 This Valentine’s Day, it’s a good bet that many a love note will arrive by text message, the latest technological tool of the lovesick. The tiny cell-phone screen has become a handy tool for dating, an easy way to flirt — and, sometimes, a menacing tool of obsession.
Text messages have rushed in to fill the ever-narrowing void in communications, somewhere between an e-mail, an IM and a phone call. But unlike e-mail, you can receive one anywhere, and unlike a phone call, there’s almost no excuse not to reply.
In the first six months of 2006, nearly 65 billion text messages were sent, almost twice as many as in the same period the previous year, according to the wireless trade group CTIA. By November, about 77 million Americans used text messaging.
Slowly but surely, that technology is changing the way we date. If an e-mail can be today’s equivalent of a love letter, a text message is like a note passed in class — quick, direct and grammatically questionable: “Want2hangout?”
“Young people are totally into instantaneousness. I want it now, I want to get in touch right now,” says Peter Crabb, associate professor of psychology at Penn State University’s Abington campus. “That’s a new thing and it’s not surprising that it’s spilled into the social norms of dating.”
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MEET TEXT
The initial step in the dating dance remains the same: handing over the digits.
But these days, the recipient is likely to use that number to text before calling. And in this always-tuned-in culture, they’re expected to do it right away.
“I think girls would expect a text message quicker than they’d expect a phone call,” says Saryn Chorney, a 28-year-old who lives in New York.
That goes both ways. Back in the technologically challenged ’90s, women were encouraged to cool their heels before returning a man’s call. The bestseller “The Rules” advised women to let the man call three times before returning the favor.
That kind of behavior is now seen for what it probably always was: rude.
Waiting a day to respond to a text is now considered “mysterious.” Anything more than that is simply poor form, says Kristina Grish, author of “The Joy of Text: Mating, Dating and Techno-Relating.”
“Everyone has a phone practically attached to their hand. You know they’ve given it some thought and they’re blatantly choosing to either ignore it or reply,” she says. “If he waits longer than 24 hours, I’d pretty much consider it dead in the water.”
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UNFILTERED
The speed of text messaging naturally lends itself to flirting, which can progress easily into racy territory. Along with the pingpong pace come heightened expectations, excitement and a dropping of the guard.
With two or three guys, Chorney felt her text or e-mail relationship had moved “further than our in-person comfort zone.” When she met them again in person, they were still shy and unsure of each other, even after their texts had advanced to sexy innuendo.
That’s to be expected with electronic communications, where out-of-character behavior becomes quite the norm. Mary Madden, senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, has studied online dating and says people consistently behave in ways they wouldn’t offline.
Behind a phone screen, people can re-create themselves as sexy, saucy or daring, even when they’d feel uncomfortable acting that way in real life.
“You don’t have the same kind of visual cues. At times that can mean you’re more likely to express something that’s more forward than you might otherwise convey face to face; you might express anger more readily,” Madden says. “The extreme emotions are not always filtered in the way they would be in a face-to-face conversation.”
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EASING IN
Text messages can also serve as an easy ice-breaker.
For many women in particular, asking someone out by text message feels less risky than a face-to-face encounter. (Any former third-grader can tell you it’s easier to take rejection through yes, no or maybe.)
“You can send your text sort of out into the ether and if in fact the person doesn’t reply, it stings, but you don’t have to hear the person’s voice. You can sort of hide behind your phone,” Grish says.
If there’s no response, she knows instantly where she stands. No more watching the phone for days on end, willing it to ring.
But there’s also something missing from this instant back-and-forth, says Crabb, who has researched how new technologies change social norms.
“If a large proportion of the dating relationship is carried on by TMing, it changes the whole communication going on between the two people,” he says. “You’ve got this little screen, and only so many words fit onto the screen. It’s very techno, it’s very impersonal. So when people are TMing back and forth, they’re losing a lot of information.”
Instead of hearing a laugh, you see lol. For sarcasm, accept ;). And eye contact, tone of voice, facial expressions? Gone, gone, gone.
Says Crabb: “It doesn’t sound very romantic to me.”
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THE DARK SIDE
If it’s easier to accept rejection via text, it’s also easier to dish it out.
A text is easy to ignore. Lovers frequently spat by text. Even breakups haven’t been spared the cell phone treatment: Witness Britney Spears’ recent divorce declaration to Kevin Federline.
Texting can also make it easier to deceive. When she says she’s in a movie theater, is she actually in a crowded bar? When he claims he’s working late and can’t talk, is he really with another woman?
Those kinds of questions underscore the ability of texting to become a weapon for obsession, allowing near constant contact while the senders remain oddly disconnected.
“The question becomes, what is the point when you’re getting too many text messages from somebody,” Crabb says. “You have to give the other person space, you have to maintain your own space. This kind of technology tempts people to forget about all of that.”
So sending a text-message Valentine may not be quite as romantic as showing up with a bunch of flowers. But it’s not too shabby, either. Grish says text messaging should be used to augment an offline relationship, not replace it.
She has this simple advice for modern daters: “Get off technology as quickly as possible.”
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Lisa Tolin is asap’s deputy editor. | Only registered users can write comments.
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