hese tips can be used or ignored if you’d like. Just remember to be yourself, say what you mean and that they’re stressing out about it just as much as you. (Marco Verch/Flickr Creative Commons)
There is nothing more annoying than that window of time between starting to text someone you’re into and actually figuring out your relationship. It can be exhilarating with them texting you all of these flirty and blush-worthy things, but then you realize you have to respond. Should you wait before you text them back? Should you get back to them right away? Is that creepy? Finally you send a text and they text back three hours later. Should you also wait three hours? Should you use an emoji or lowercase letters? Texting someone you like is up there as one of the most overthought tasks in the universe. Here’s some tips to get you through this hard time.
1) Using lowercase letters is oddly cuter and less jarring to read. Yes, this concept is ridiculous, but maybe it’s one of those silly things you just have to do to get on with your life. Let’s see how different capital letters and lowercase are: “Hey thanks for helping me today” versus “hey thanks for helping me today.” It’s almost unexplainable why this works. It’s like you’re typing in a flirty whisper in lowercase and a regular speaking voice when capitalized, which sounds stupid but works.
2) Never ever use a period at the end of your text. For whatever reason, people read periods as being strict and harsh. It could be because it forces an ending to your poetic use of enjambment while flirting. You can say, “You’re so ridiculous.” or you can say “you’re so ridiculous” without a period. The former can be interpreted as an insult and the latter can be seen as a flirt. It adds tone to your words, which can make or break what you meant to say. Now if you’re in a fight with them, break out all the punctuation you like. They’ll get the memo.
3) Surprisingly enough, there is such thing as too many emojis. Really the only time you should use emojis while texting someone is when you are saying something that can be taken the wrong way. If you’re saying something like “I don’t think you can call us friends,” then you might want to tack on a winky-face emoji. If you don’t, then it can be read as if you literally don’t consider this person to be your friend, rather than considering them to be more than friends. Don’t just send a block of 100 emojis or an emoji in every text. You can say what you need with your words most of the time, and you really don’t want to come across as fake or annoying.
4) Timing is absolutely the worst part about texting someone you like, so I’m going to make this simple. Ignore how long it took them to text back, don’t give it a second thought. Text them back when you see the message. This doesn’t mean that you should hover over your phone waiting for the day they text you back. Live your life, and if they text you, text them back. Trying to get revenge on them by waiting three hours or days to text back is just going to deter any progress you hope to get out of this relationship. But if they’re not texting back within a few hours once you start dating, you can get as grumpy as you want about it.
These tips can be used or ignored if you’d like. Just remember to be yourself, say what you mean and that they’re stressing out about it just as much as you.
Rebecca Maher is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at rebecca.maher@uconn.edu.