Silence Is The New Texting

With 107 different ways to communicate, we just don’t communicate anymore. *shudder*

For my sixteenth birthday, I got my own phone line in my room. I decorated my answering machine with stickers I got from Hot Topic and would run to my room the second I got home to see if anyone called. I wasn’t one of the popular girls but I was lucky to have a few of those phone calls that never seemed to end with a boy I thought I might marry. My phone number was part of my identity and I would sprint to answer a ringing phone.

For my thirty-fifth birthday (this past September 11th), my phone blew up with Facebook notifications, I got texts from some family and close friends, and wow. I even got one or two voicemails. Though the phone rang on my birthday to wish me all of the birthday wishes…

I.Didn’t.Answer.It.

I could have, but I wasn’t prepared for it. And hell, I didn’t even listen to the voicemails until the next day and it was only to get rid of the notification. One was from my brothers best friend, former VP of CAA, and a man who introduced me to Lil’ Jon last time I was in LA.

The other was one of my oldest and loveliest friends that has four (4) children. She took a minute out of her day and again, I couldn’t even pick up the phone to have a shared connection between Fall River and Boston.

On to the dating game. The last two men I’ve felt a connection to had one thing in common… they never ever texted me first. I mean they’d text me right back and say “Yes! I’d love to grab dinner tonight!” “My day was great! How are you?”, but they would never text me first. You’re probably thinking “Be honest, they didn’t like you…” but no, they did. As men are not mind-readers, I asked that these men just say hello to me. Fine, I asked them to do this daily (wow, sorry that’s so clingy). Both men said if that’s what I needed they would be more than happy to do that and then both men failed miserably after day two.

I’m a Director of Operations at a start-up, a packed AirBnB host, and I have plenty to keep me busy. But making someone feel like a priority is still so important to me that I just can’t understand why when reading a text there isn’t a semi-quick response. I mean, I always respond and I don’t care if it makes me look weak, I got the text and wanted to respond. I wouldn’t stop mid CPR to text back, but a phone vibrates, you look, you answer.

In the last couple years I’ve been such a party to this violent shift. Technology has changed social interaction and we’re more connected, yet more alone than we’ve ever been.

Part of me envies the married couples and then I’m reminded of Ashley Madison. The other part of me is excited that I’m single and then I’m reminded of pre-technology days and how I met my first boyfriend out of college at work.

And though I’m now working at a company that teaches computers to think like people and yet I’m surrounded by millennials that don’t know who the Kardashians are… (no seriously, and it’s wonderful)… are we just in flux until the next wave where we decide it’s cool to start texting again?

If not, then what?

No seriously. Silence can’t be the new texting.