At 2am, my girlfriend and I found ourselves sitting at the Puhu Sushi Bar in Crowne Plaza hotel conversing into what turned into a 5 1/2 hour-long conversation. We were laughing uncontrollably while sharing all of the qualities in men that we loved and all of the qualities in men we despised. The stuff that either caused our heart to melt, and the stuff that literally caused vomit to up rise in the throat and cringe at the thought of it. Basically when it all came down to it, we were left with nothing other to say than, “Wait, are you serious?” We couldn’t figure out if we’re just nit-picky or if there truly are some things that are unacceptable to do as grown men. We were talking about modern technology, common courtesy and basic phone etiquette. We came up with a list of things that hopefully many of you may be able to relate to in dealing with: telephone drama.
Case and point number one: spelling. I’m not your “sweathart” and I never will be. As a matter of fact, I don’t even really know what that is. Being a bad text speller is NOT okay. We’re talking about text here, not writing an essay. Anything you write in a simple small message should be spelt correctly. As a matter of fact, don’t most phones have auto correct these days? When you misspell, you take out the meaning, which leads me to my next point…
Textbonics—a HUGE no-no. It may be fine in conversation and if you’re under the age of 23, but if you have a career, you had better learned your phonetics and use them properly when speaking to a lady. “No I’m not going to the supa bowl and as a matter of fact, I don’t want to do dis, dat, or go der with you either!” Buy a dictionary, learn how to speak correctly and practice talking with your mother before you even think to holla at me next time.
“Baby, babe, ma, mama…”—If I haven’t heard from you in weeks, please refrain from calling me your baby, baby girl, ma, or mama. Those are all terms of endearment that you use with someone whom you actually take care of and care about. If your last phone call can’t be found in my recent call lists, we haven’t reached that point, so stop.
Common Responses—Please don’t tell me how much you care about me or how special I am to you by quoting movie lines or song lyrics. “I’m the best you ever had.”? That’s the number one song out on the radio. Wow, creative and I’ve really fallen for you now. Equivalently annoying as common responses is…
Erroneous Responses—See Example:
Person A: What are you doing?
Person B: Muah!
I’m either going to think A, you’re illiterate or B, you’re literally an idiot. Please just answer the question. In addition, don’t respond to my questions or comments with an emoticon. No one wants to release they’re daily stresses or confessions of love to be hit back with “winky face.” If you wouldn’t do it or say it in a real life conversation, please don’t send it over text. However cute “winky face” is, she still doesn’t answer my question.
“Hope all is well, God bless.”—Excuse me? Are we signing yearbooks? Since when is it cool to text a person that you’ve been consistently seeing, an emotionless, “Last night was cool. Keep in touch.” No, not cool.
“Send me a pic”-No.
Text. Text back. Text. Text back. Call…No Answer—I think this is one of the biggest pet peeves every person with a cell phone faces. Why does this happen? We were just having a conversation, my fingers got tired, I’m getting lost, and I haven’t perfected simultaneous reading and driving. I know you’re there. We were just mutually dialoguing for the past hour and half…pick up your damn phone!
“I’m just at home.”–What are you talking about? Please don’t respond to my text message from three days ago and act like nothing happened. If three days have gone by and I haven’t heard from you, I could care LESS what you’re doing at the current moment. Keep it moving.
UpPeRcAsE/lOwErCaSe—Dang, it took my forever to write that. I truly don’t understand why people still continue to write like this. This probably mostly only applies to girls. Yes girls, not women. If you’re past 12 years old, jumbled letters is NOT cute. At all. Ever.
Lastly, I know I’ve been ranting mostly on texting etiquette, but when or if you actually do get through to someone on the phone these days, please don’t eat the phone. I can interpret phonetics perfectly fine and my ears are clean. I simply cannot hear you. Speak clearly and pull the phone out of your mouth!
Collaboratively Created by,
Anastacia Waller and Friend Linsey
For More Of Anastacia Check Out Her Blog
