@JoshuaDolin
“When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire Earth and I had to maintain the peace.” ~Jimmy Carter
When President Carter said these famous words, he was describing a time in American history where the United States and the Soviet Union both had the ability to attack the other, but neither would make the first move.
I believe that this situation is similar to contemporary relationships. When we first meet someone, the cold war has begun. Sure we like them, but we don’t want them to know that because that would make us weak.
Subsequently, this is one of the most stressful parts of dating: Who should text the other first?
When I first started talking to Phillip, he messaged me first. My friend Aurora was more excited than I was because, as she said, “He messaged you first? Everyone knows that the first person to send a message likes the other person more!”
Is that what it meant? Did I now have the upper hand with Phillip since he made the first move?
So then the next question that comes into play is “Who is supposed to play ‘hard to get’?”
I don’t want to be someone who participates in these games, but I think we all participate. I had planned on inviting Phillip over to have dinner one night. We texted for a while and then he just stopped messaging me.
When we like someone new, getting a text message from that person is better than being at Disneyland. We see that our last message has been “Delivered,” so we anxiously await the sound of a new text. I think we have all experienced that “Damn it!” moment when the wrong person texts us, instead of our love interest.
When we are waiting for that response from someone it’s all that we can think about. I check my phone multiple times per minute just incase I missed the text. And then the next thing I do is find a way to distract myself from my phone by taking a shower or going on a run.
I called Collette that night because I needed reinforcements.
“He told me last night that he wanted to hang out and now he just won’t message me back!” I said.
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“I hate the whole awkwardness of trying to get with someone,” she said. “Why can’t we just text each other and say ‘Hey, I like you, you like me. Let’s have sex.’”
I couldn’t agree more with her. Instead of just being forward and honest, we play games with each other to avoid the vulnerability of actually liking someone. I liked Phillip, but if he wasn’t respond to my text then I was not going to keep messaging him.
If I were to do that then I would just look pathetic and he would have the upper hand. So instead of spending a night with a guy I genuinely liked, I bought a bottle of Skinny Girl White Peach Margarita and watched the Home and Garden Television Network.
Is that what it has come to in relationships? We secretly fight a cold war against people we love because we don’t want them to think we like them?
“For me it’s more of a pride thing,” Maggie said. “I might be head-over-heels for this guy, but I don’t want to text him first because I want to be contacted by him.”
Maggie brought up another game that we all play in texting: purposely delaying our responses.
“A lot of the time if a guy takes a long time to respond, I will open his text and then wait a while before I respond. It’s not that I am trying to ‘punish’ him or anything, but I want him to know that I am also busy and not constantly on my phone,” she said.
Delaying responses on purpose is something that we are all guilty of doing at one point or another. Ashley is constantly texting different guys, and she follows the delayed response rule religiously.
“Sometimes guys text me back immediately, but I don’t want to respond quickly because I want them to know that I have other things going on,” she said.
Similarly, Aurora was still having the same problems with Jason. They had gone on a few dates and they both liked each other. But Jason didn’t respond to Aurora’s text for a few days. So as she said it, “I’m done with him. If he doesn’t want to text me back then I don’t need him.”
America managed to make it out of the Cold War without launching any nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union, so I think that is enough reason for us to at least text someone that we like.
The next day at work I decided that if Phillip had not texted me by 4 p.m., then I would text him. So at 4:04 p.m., I texted him and made the courageous move to warm the cold war in our text-messaging relationship.
If texting has transformed the dating experience into a cold war, should we be the ones to end it? Do we really “lose” anything by texting someone first? I texted Phillip first and then spent the night with him instead of being alone, so I declared it a victory. We all need to end the games and cold war in dating and just #textthemfirst.
