9 Things You Need To Know About Horrible Texters

1. We just really hate the idea of being tied down to an electronic device. I know! It’s the twenty-first century! Blah blah blah, call me an old lady (it’s okay, I already do), but I like to live my life without constantly feeling the need to check that tiny glowing screen in my back pocket.

2. We also really hate to be rude, which seems counter-intuitive, since society has dubbed not-texting-back borderline rude behavior. We end up walking this tightrope of not responding to a text for 8 hours, and then apologizing profusely when we finally do respond.

3. If you already know that we take a while to respond, don’t bother sending “Hey, what’s up?” texts. We love chatting with you, so let’s do all the catching up in person, sans emojis.

4. Countless articles list delayed texting as a major relationship red flag, because it means the recipient doesn’t think you’re a priority. But that’s not it! It’s not that we consider the person sending the text unimportant, we just don’t think the actual act of texting is a priority. Honestly, Ryan Gosling could text me (*brb daydreaming) and I would still be a horrible texter (probably, I mean, it’s Ryan Gosling).

5. If it’s time sensitive, just call us. I know! Whaaaaaat????? Call someone??? It’s 2015! Who uses a telephone for its original purpose anymore! Blasphemy!! And yes, people who hate texting, probably also hate chatting on the phone. But we would choose to have a one-minute phone call over a twenty-minute texting session any day of the week.

6. One of our worst habits is reading a text when we’re in the middle of something, and thinking “Eh, I’ll respond to them when I’m done with this.” Fast forward five hours and we’re just now remembering your text.

7. The whole, “text back, it only takes five seconds” excuse everyone brings up is bologna. Sure, one single text might take five seconds, but one text leads to two which leads to thirty-five, and hey! Five seconds turned into one hour. If we’re going to text you, we want to make sure that we have that time to dedicate to you.

8. We seriously miss the days of old phones that didn’t have the capability to text, and we would switch back to one of those phones in a heartbeat if it didn’t mean we would have to sacrifice all those other perks of having a phone, like internet and Tinder (#priorities).

9. Sometimes we legitimately will type out a response to a text and forget to send it. It marches time in our drafts folder, waiting in cellular purgatory, while we get distracted and don’t check our phone again for another two hours.