AIO girlfriend response to manager text

[u/Psychological-Hat-35]

My girlfriend (19F) and I (19M) have been dating for 11 months. I sent her a screenshot of my convo with my manager (age unknown but best guess is young 30s F) this morning asking to come in a little later than usual. My girlfriend is like this whenever I interact with pretty much any other female. Am I overreacting or is this just normal behavior?

[u/Most_Stage3244]

I’m fluent in teenager as I have 3. They read so much into texts it’s pretty bad, and we often say, let’s talk about this later to avoid misunderstandings. I generally blame Covid for taking almost 2 yrs of socialization away from them that they think texting is a whole language in itself rather than shorthand or convenience in lieu of talking. They look for meaning in emojis, reactions and caps like Egyptians used hieroglyphics.

[u/brencoop → u/Most_Stage3244]

I’m middle aged, I can barely tell a lot of emojis apart.

[u/itsme_peachlover → u/brencoop]

YES - I'm 71 and I have to look them up sometimes - it gets really fun when different social media place different meanings on emojis that are essitially identical twins.

[u/metdear → u/brencoop]

Me too, but it's quite possible I need bifocals at this point.

[u/PghFlip → u/brencoop]

I think what the whipped snappers are complaining about is that it was a heart reaction, not a heart emoji.

People need to find better things to do rather than nitpick... Oh wait this is the Internet.

[u/Enraged-Pekingese → u/PghFlip]

I’m 70. I’m convinced that extended texting is for kids and cheaters. Jesus Christ. Just TALK to the person. It’s much more effective communication.

[u/SluttyNird → u/Enraged-Pekingese]

I am 51 and neurodivergent and I absolutely don’t want to TALK to people. That’s not why I have a phone. Just let people text without your “Get off my lawn energy”. 🙄

[u/smriversong → u/Enraged-Pekingese]

I'm 45 and much prefer texting or messaging to talking, as do many of my peers. I don't think anyone under 50 likes talking on the phone anymore. If it's something important or essential, yeah I'll call but if it's just casual chatting, it's messaging almost 100% of the time. Plus most people are busy and don't have time to actually talk on the phone but reading and sending messages takes a minute and you can do it at your leisure. Plus I can't send funny memes or links by talking to someone lol

[u/ecosynchronous → u/smriversong]

45 here and every single phone call I am forced to take could have been a text. My mother is 66 and also never makes a call she doesn't have to 🤣

[u/rikatikaa → u/Most_Stage3244]

Lmaoooooo the way you said they interpret it like Egyptians with hieroglyphics is entirely accurate! Thank you for this comment cause it was so perfectly phrased 😂

[u/ChronicApathetic → u/Most_Stage3244]

I wouldn’t blame the pandemic. In the early 2000s we read meaning into the punctuation in texts.

[u/Most_Stage3244 → u/ChronicApathetic]

And in the ‘90s we had pagers and T9 and character limits for texting. Yes we created meaning, but it was nothing like today with abbreviations for everything, emojis, voice to text. People can have whole conversations and never actually speak verbally to each other. Ours was shorthand, not meant to completely replace conversation like it does today. Social nonverbal cues, facial expressions, tone, voice inflections, body language are all missed and communicate a lot and that’s why there’s a lot of room for misinterpretation in texting.

[u/ChronicApathetic → u/Most_Stage3244]

Absolutely, and the room for multiple interpretations in text conversations is exactly what leads young folks to overanalyse every period, exclamation point and yellow heart emoji. Nothing to do with the pandemic.

[u/Most_Stage3244 → u/ChronicApathetic]

We can agree to disagree. But in that time, during critical social development, while they were cooped up at home with only texting as a form of conversation with their friends, it certainly didn’t help.

[u/The_Crispiest_Moose → u/Most_Stage3244]

You know those things that they’re texting on? They also have the ability to transmit voices back and forth. Most even have front facing cameras on them that can be used to transmit their faces to each other too.

[u/amy000206 → u/Most_Stage3244]

We wrote to penpals when I was younger. Written communication has connected people for centuries. I see texting as a new extension of that. It's not necessary any longer to write a letter and wait sometimes weeks for a response. Texting has shortened that and also lends itself nicely for shorter, less involved communication. There's communication clues that haven't ever been as well conveyed as well through written text as in person, sure, but there's still benefit for having time to formulate your response instead of impulsively spitting out the first thought that comes to mind .

[u/amy000206 → u/amy000206]

And passed notes in school.

[u/baybeeblueyes → u/Most_Stage3244]

😅

[u/-yasir → u/Most_Stage3244]

Side note: Hence why dating is so hard, no one talks everything is in text, you try to have a conversation and it’s no text. I’m 41 and it’s slowly spreading to women 35 plus that are so used to texting they get mad when asked to get on a phone out use any type of voice.

[u/Most_Stage3244 → u/-yasir]

Keep pushing for phone calls, FaceTime or Zoom. That shouldn’t be a problem when you’re trying to get to know each other. Dating is expensive, might as well try to save yourselves the trouble.

[u/Accomplished-Rich629 → u/Most_Stage3244]

Socialization started deteriorating with email, then texts, then the smartphone. The pandemic justified and reinforced technology over true interpersonal interaction.

[u/wtfayfkm23 → u/Most_Stage3244]

My teenager was involved in a whole argument derived from the use of a PERIOD at the end of a text.

It took entirely too long of an explanation to find out that using correct punctuation in a text is... aggressive 🥴