What does it mean to be a bad texter?

And as a dating coach, my clients routinely fret about their skills and capacities in the digital realm.

• “If I’m a terrible texter, should I even bother with online dating?”

• “I barely even look at my phone; I hate when people expect me to reply right away.”

I have over 30 different texting apps on my phone. I’m in thousands of group chats. I’ve been instant messaging every day for over 25 years. Yet I still fear that I, too, am a bad texter, in the eyes of most people, most of the time.

My fatal flaw has always been response time. Don’t get me wrong — when I do text back, I can send multi-paragraph missives replete with multimedia, memes, emotional validation, and proactive plans for future hangouts.

But it can take me months. Mayhaps only weeks, if I’m in a good place, with good reception, and if I’m not in the middle of major projects. And sure, for the 100 or so people I most frequently message, it might be just a few days. But from the moment I see the first notification appear, my internal guilt clock starts ticking. Sometimes I respond immediately, in an effort to thwart that guilt response. However, it is woefully unwise to make a habit of responding to thoughtfully-crafted smut from your lover(s) with…thumbs up emojis; and no, heart emojis won’t cut it, either.

But let’s delve deeper, because response time is only 1 factor in potentially bad texting.

Categories of (bad) texting:

• Frequency — do you text back quickly enough for your responses to be relevant? If someone invites you to a thing next week, but you don’t reply for 2 weeks, then they may feel reticent to invite you to timely things in the future.

• Flirtation — do your texts actively build tension, and intrigue? Are your texts a sensual delight to consume? Might they be described as titillating? Would your lovers, upon receiving your grade A smut, feel compelled to do dramatic readings of it to their nearby friends?

  

• Proactivity / Planning — do you initiate? Do you communicate with enough detail and clarity that your recipient(s) can feel like they have all the right information, and that the ball is now in their court?

• Emotional Depth — I might also call this conversational cultivation. It’s one thing to initiate, but that can get old quickly and feel forced if all you’re doing is a simple repetitive “hi, how’s your week going?” with no additional creativity or vulnerability. Sometimes, adding some deeper thoughts, reflections, questions, and occasional melodramatic rants can go a long way.

• Modality — do you incorporate a rich variety of media into your messages, and ensure that your messaging formats and platforms with any given person are the kinds that they actually prefer to receive?

  • text only

  • images / photos

  • videos

  • memes

    

  • in-line replies/reactions

  • forwarded content (from other IG stories, FB posts, email newsletters, etc.)

  • voice notes

  
  Personally, I consider voice notes to be plague, and refuse on principle to listen to them for at least 1-2 weeks. I’m softening on this boundary as new technologies enable automatic voice note transcriptions, for easier indexing/searchability, but dear lord, textwalls of voice notes are my nightmare fuel:

  

• Tact — a tactful texter will have accrued some wisdom that helps them avoid common pitfalls:

  • platform awareness — if you need to send something urgent, it might be unwise to send it by email (or tiktok, or instagram) rather than text / phone call. Additionally, if you’re chatting on a dating app, where people routinely delete their accounts on a whim, it makes sense to move off-app to your preferred platform sooner than later. This is especially true if your strength is sending voice notes, but the app only lets you communicate with plaintext.

  • presumptuousness — just because someone didn’t text you back in the last 24-72h does not mean they’re ignoring you, or frankly thinking about you at all. Yes, that’s even if the message receipt says they “read” it. Trust that they’re responding to their life’s priorities in a meaningful way; always default to extending them curiosity rather than judgment. If this constitutes a serious compatibility issue for you, bring it up in person rather than through passive aggressive texts.

    

  • NSFW basics — hopefully by now most people have learned not to start conversations off with photos of their junk, and not to send unsolicited nudes, particularly in the middle of the workday, particularly when your recipient is delivering a presentation to their team, or customers…*

    

    *unless that’s your kink 😘

kbye
-steve

PS — As before, plz schedule a call with me anytime to chat about dating, life, joining my upcoming 8-week online dating group seminar, etc.
PPS — If you have questions or other categories of bad texting to add to the mix, you can reply directly to this email, as I’m the only one who will see it.
PPPS — Tomorrow, I’m sending out the details for my February 24th dayhike through NYC. Sign up to be notified here.