I am ambivalent about texting. I understand it is a quick, truncated form of communication. You can deliver your message in seconds – no ring, no voicemail, no unnecessary repartee. I just cannot get jiggy with it. 

I am a woman in love with words. I am also an observer of people. There is no observation in  a text. If you are face-to-face with someone, you know if they are interested in what you are saying, just being nice, or totally not into you. Even if you hold an actual conversation over the phone, you can hear inflection of the voice, pausing and other cues to let you know the true meaning behind the words. Let us face facts – people are not always honest. There are hard core liars and polite deceivers. How can you decipher which is which from a text? 

Or maybe I am just not hip to the rules. I was bombarded with questions about me texting with a guy – Who texted first? How long did you wait to respond? And many more leaving me confused. 

I thought it polite to respond to a text message after you read it. Apparently, responding too soon is a sign of thirst, i.e., desperation. Here I was thinking I was being polite. Is text messaging the new way of getting to know someone? Or is it a nice guy's way of brushing you off? Heck, I don't know. 

Perusing the web, I found the queen of etiquette Emily Post has a website and yes there is an article on text messaging etiquette. I learned something new. Like an email, you can never bee sure when someone will read the text so don't freak out if you don't get an immediate response. It is indeed polite to respond to a message soon after receiving it. 

So there.