Text based courtship

 

I’m lucky enough to have an incredilberry witty pen pal, although we don’t use pens rather relying on secret facebook messages so we are facebook friends in the truest and most real sense. Our face to face interaction was fleeting and now dates to almost four or five years ago but over the last year our palness has grown and i eagerly anticipate his replies and sincere words of encouragement and clever and amusing insights that makes me laugh violently out loud and walk into bus shelters on my walk to work. i'll happily take a bruised forehead for my bud.

I read every word this boy writes to me with wide eyes and my mouth open in awe (the same expression as when i visit planetariums because last time i checked: space = awesome). I’m going to share something he wrote to me and I’m a little bit jealous of sharing my prize friend with you all BUT sharing is caring my gummi bearings. I can’t wait to bookmark his blog which is in the making, maybe our blogs can get married (strictly for tax breaks, ofcourse).

He said:

‘I liked your most recent post, does it apply in reverse? Like when the girl who i’m trying to engage in text-based courtship ritual sends the classic 'no response' message, (the one that is curt but polite, answers most of your questions, but puts forward no obvious invitations for further witty banter), this is a clear 'fuck off' isn’t it? This makes me inclined to agree with your 29 year old boy man friend, girls do have a tendency toward those hard shelled seeds that go so well on the top of cornettos. And i think it blows, not in the good way (like bubbles), in the shit way. The rules of engagement are quite clear, I can’t message, and I hate playing games. I think they’re bullshit. But the reality is they work so you have to.’

Are you as blown away as I was? Yeah, he’s a liquorice allsorts of good! But he does suggest things which make me uneasy and things which make me want to defend my sex, the fairer sex as my bud refers to us.

First of all, text courtship is a serious skill of mine. It’s a new skill which I was mastered given the keyboard on my iphone is the same as a computer : people texting on those 1.11.111 = a.b.c formats amaze me. You can have some of my milkshake. Anyhow I can handle my 350 characters of text with such precision and sharp vixen tongue that I believe (maybe foolishly but please humour me) I can catch any butterfly (ie. babeing boy) I wish to enter into the text to and fro with.

Why? Because I like words derr brain! I read captions, comments, status updates, books, articles, graffiti on bathroom doors, post scripts, subject lines and doodles on desks at school and i get hyped on how each word follows another. I store them in my notebook and read them back to myself at night. Here is one i read in clash magazine and have wanted to save for the right moment but i think I’ll just share it right now:

History is a big fucking place.
(completely not related to this post but those words look super irresistible together)

Ok, i may be overstating my relationship with words but i do like to hold hands with clever sentences. The thing is, not all girls like words and I don’t think ‘curt but polite’ messages are necessarily a clear ‘fuck off’. Maybe to her they are simply ‘short and sweet’, like what your parent’s speech at your 21st birthday should have been? That being said, I have recently found another issue with text courtship. Sometimes you might be expecting to face a Fighter Fly in Mario Bros, (a fierce opponent in a text battle) but she turns out to be a green Shell Creeper. As you can imagine my pen pal’s correspondence with his text target would be super witty punchy pieces of amazing and I really feel for this girl... for the average shell creeper it would be highly intimidating.

I have a feeling, and i'd put your money on this sure thing, he has misjudged his text battle opponent and unfortunately no one is to blame and every one loses in this situation. He feels he can't message her again and after she was rudely slapped in the face with his brilliance, she now receives no response to her (now confirmed) short and sweet text.

I felt the need to revue as for the first time in my life I was faced with a guy who writes messages that make my fingers want to run away from my keyboard – the first message he sent me was that super fucking amazing. I even sent him a holding message saying I would reply at a later date when i could think of something good (honesty - the most dorky of virtues) and then I just re read his message for days with nothing to reply because it would never live up to his Fighter Fly status, compared to him i was just a mere shell creeper, and ive never really been a shell creeper before...

Anyway my point is text courtship is definitely a game, its sometime fun but it hardly ever should be the demise of a budding romantic adventure. Its rare to be on the same level, if my penpal is on level 19 expecting to fight fighter flies - it's just not going to work. Maybe Mario Bros is not her thing,  and unless this is a real deal breaker for you (no judgement) whisper on her neck and ask to hold her hand in secret, that will get her shell creeping.