Idle Hands Do the Devil's Texting Work

I'm usually an advocate of texting.  It's an easy form of communication for short things - pick up this at the store!, are you here?, here's the address - and it's usually how I talk to people now (except when I'm driving, of course).  But could there be anything worse than trying to date in the age of texting?  I think not.

When I send a text to a friend, I don't care when or if I get one back.  When I send a text to a guy, I watch the phone like it's going to do some sort of magic trick.  Every time a phone within ear shot goes off, I'm checking my screen to see if it was me, even though it obviously wasn't.  (Did it just buzz?  I thought I heard it buzz!)  I hate the whole thing because I, friends, am impatient.  If you just texted me a second ago, what is taking so long to send back a response to my witty comment?!? <- See?  Crazy! *le sigh*   

Oh, the agony of waiting for a response!  After 10 minutes of no communication, I'm reasonable and think "Oh, he's busy, right?"  After 20 minutes, I'm a little less reasonable.  "He's busy" turns into "He's ignoring me.  Did I say something wrong?"  When 20 minutes turns into an hour, I'm dying.  "What did I do?  Am I that awful?  I'm an idiot.  I'm being stupid, right?  Yeah, I'm being silly, but really he probably thinks I'm a weirdo dumdum who smells."  (I have a lot of internal dialogue; I really hope that's normal.)   

I tend not to text first, at least in the initial phases.  I know this seems counterintuitive, but it's how I do it.  (Sidenote: A friend's husband once told me that "eager beats pretty," so maybe I should rethink my texting policy.)  Once I actually text first, I spend some time concocting what I consider to be the perfect text.  Breezy!  Light!  Funny!  I'm a fun girl!  Just checking in, no pressure!  Then I send a text out into the universe and it's gone.  It hangs out in the air space while I die a slow death caused by the anticipation of a response.  Oh, Tom Petty, you were right - the waiting is the hardest part.