To text (or not to text...)

Okay. So if you’ve ever known anyone of the opposite sex EVER in your life, you know this to be true: Men and women communicate differently.

I know… it’s shocking! But alas, it’s true. And let’s face it: The fact that we communicate differently creates all sorts of messes in our relationships.

Take, for example, my friend M, who ran into an ex-boyfriend over the weekend. They had dated the summer between their junior and senior years in college. During the summer, their romance fizzled. But when during the fall, when they went back to different colleges in different cities, it fizzled.

Anyway, they ran into one another over the weekend at a little sports bar. M says they eyed one another to make sure it really was who they thought it was. Eventually, he made his way over, they reconnected and enjoyed pleasant catch-up conversation.

His phone was dead, so he suggested she text him with her new cell phone number. He also invited her to go hang with him and his friends at another local bar… but she was tired and thus, declined.

But per his request, she sent him a text that read something like, “Hey, it was good to see you!” She didn’t identify herself and – worse yet – has no way to know if her number actually showed up.

Last night, after much consideration and several (SEVERAL…) glasses of wine, we decided that she should text him again but be more specific. After all, she never identified herself. He might not know who it was who was texting, right?

So, we formulated a text message that was (we think!) breezy, unstudied and spur-of-the-moment.

It took 30 minutes to write.

“Hey, it’s M… Hope you guys had fun at RPs last weekend! Let me know if you ever want to grab a drink and catch up.”

He hasn’t responded.

Maybe we should have listened to the advice of two guy friends who piped up and gave their two cents. They said (and I quote), “Guys don’t like it when girls call.” But seriously, why ask someone to text you and why invite them to continue hanging out if you have no intention of responding?

This is what we girls like to call, "Giving Mixed Signals."

Were the situation reversed and it had been M who requested the original text message, she would have responded by Tuesday with a light (and thoughtfully composed) return text.

So why don't boys play by the same rules? Because (sigh) we communicate differently. And because of that difference, M is stuck obsessively checking her phone for new messages and wondering if she read this silly boy wrong in the first place.