Holy Crap II*

[*Note: This phrase has become my go-to exclamation for whenever something is outrageously, shockingly expensive or whenever my financial stupidity far exceeds its usual level. So, you kind of know where this post is going.]

As you know, I have written before about the inherent dangers of text messaging. Yesterday, I encountered an entirely new hazard--financial ruin. O.K., not ruin, actually, but stress and strain for sure. This happened when I logged on to my cell phone account and discovered that my text message bill for the month of April came to . . . $100!! This is on top of my usual bill of about $60. Shocked yet fascinated, I pulled up my itemized bill and was amazed to discover that in a single month, I had sent and received over 600 text messages. WTF?? I had no idea I was texting that often. It was a real eye-opener.

So today, I did what I should have done a long time ago, which is to sign up for unlimited text messaging for one low monthly fee. ("Low" is relative, by the way. Sometimes I feel like I'm getting low monthly fee'd to death.) But it's too late for this month's bill--$100, down the drain.

In the meantime, I also found out yesterday that my work phone (the Treo), which I thought had unlimited text messaging (and which I've been trying to get people to text to rather than my cell phone), does not, or at least, it didn't--I'm trying to remedy that too. I guess it's a lucky thing that people weren't using my work number during the month of April--I doubt a $100 text-messaging bill would have gone over too well with the finance people.

So anyhoo, all of this has led me once again to contemplate the role of text messaging in the dating scene of today. It truly is a brave new world. Before my divorce, I had never sent a single text message, but as soon as I started dating, I realized it's THE form of communication with new people you meet these days. Who knew? And it's not just a trend among the young, either--guys my age do it as well. (O.K., in reality, the closest I've gotten to someone "my age" is 34, but close enough, yes?) And I have to say, at first I was pretty resistant. Why go through the annoying process of punching all these little phone buttons (and learning a whole new language--T9! Some of you know what I mean!) when it would be much easier to just call the person or, if an immediate response isn't needed anyway, e-mail them.

But there are some definite advantages to texting that have become apparent to me as I've gotten more into it. The most obvious one is that, unlike on a phone call, you don't have to respond right away--you can let the phone just sit there while you go about your business, and you can answer when convenient. A happy side effect of this is that you can think about your response more--you have time to come up with something witty and clever before answering. (No more thinking of the perfect thing to say after it's too late!) This explains why it's such a hot phenomenon in the dating world--you always want to come off as witty and clever to people you're dating, right? Now you can! (Of course, the converse is true as well: If someone takes a while to text me back, and the response is still dull, unintelligible, etc., a big red flag goes up with me, and I tend to kind of write the person off. Harsh, but true.)

Another advantage is that you can be much more . . . flirtatious, sooner, in text messages than you would be on the phone. Things you might be hesitant to actually say to a person you can put in a text, with a little wink-wink icon . . . you can get away with a lot this way. The recipient can't really tell if you're joking, teasing, whatever, when they don't have the tone of your voice to go on, and it just makes things more interesting at times.

Anyway, since I also text people I'm not dating, here's some info--for now, use my personal cell phone number, not my Treo number, for texting. If this changes (again!), I'll let you know.