The story goes: They met at a Lincoln Park bar. She thought he seemed like a nice guy. Later, when he asked for her phone number, she gave it to him.
Up to this point, the story above follows the standard template for courtship. But what happened next for Amy Varney is a reflection of where technology intersects dating in 2008.
For the next month and a half, almost all of their conversations (when they weren’t face-to-face) — the small talk, the flirting, the what-are-you-doing-Friday-nights? — occurred over text-messaging. Not once did he call her to initiate a phone conversation. It was a generational shift in the protocols of romance, the likes of which Varney had not experienced before.
“I was 29, he was 22 — I chalked it up to that. I was telling friends, ‘This guy doesn’t call me; he just texts me,'” Varney said. “I thought it was kind of unusual and fun.”
It goes without saying: The rise in text-messaging — and how it affects social dynamics — is in line with breakthroughs in telecommunications. The written word (love letters) became the telephone call; e-mails were big in the 1990s, and now Facebook flirting (what’s a Super Poke, anyway?) is in vogue in the ’00s.
Today, the immediacy of text-messaging makes it the preferred medium among information-barraged teens and twentysomethings — it’s the contemporary, wireless equivalent of passing notes in class.
Though no one can say for sure how much texting and flirting are intertwined, the technology’s prevalence is undeniable. Between December 2005 and December 2007, the number of text messages sent and received in the United States increased almost fivefold, from 9.8 billion text messages a month to 48.1 billion, according to The Wireless Association.
Varney, a graphic designer in Evanston, estimated her text message count with this prospective boyfriend in the low thousands; on average, 30 a day. Then she saw her cell phone bill and was taken aback: $75 in text-messaging charges alone that first month. She quickly switched to a phone plan that included texts.
“It boils down to convenience,” Varney said. “It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s more about sniffing out a situation before investing a lot of time or energy.”
Back in olden times, when courtship was limited to land lines, letters and in-person meet-ups, “you might need an extra push to initiate a romantic relationship,” said Lauren Scissors, a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University studying technology-mediated communications. “Technology gives people a greater sense of ease. If you’re shy, it makes it easier to make that first move.”
The vulnerability of phone conversations is one reason Carlos Cruz, a relationships expert based in Chicago, teaches men how to improve their “text game.”
“With text messages, you can take your time to think about the answer,” Cruz said. “With a phone call, you have to be super animated in those five to 10 minutes of the conversation. It’s just so much more pressure than a simple text message.”
Cruz developed a system he calls the “Two-Track Structure for Texts.” In essence, keep it short, be funny (but not funny all the time) and phrase messages so that the recipient will answer in the affirmative. Instead of asking “Wanna go out tonight?” Cruz suggests, “Do you like Italian food?”
But with text-messaging reliant on shorthand and slang (“OMG my BFF Jill,” quoth the Cingular commercial), is the unintended victim the art of conversation?
Perhaps the opposite, said Margaret Shepherd, author of the book “The Art of Civilized Conversation.”
“If text messages have replaced phone calls, it’s not all bad,” Shepherd said. “I think a phone call is a wasteful and not very satisfying form of conversation.” In her book, Shepherd wrote that the telephone turns chats into “two-dimensional conversations” that are “chilled by the mechanics of the technology.”
Said Shepherd (via telephone interview): “If you’re going to bemoan anything, it’s that we’re getting together less. With texting, it cuts right to the bottom line: ‘I want to be with you.'”
“I think technology has definitely allowed for more intimate moments when you’re away from your mate,” said Julia Ceithaml, a 25-year-old accountant from Chicago. “You can always look at that ‘I miss you’ and smile, and know they’re thinking about you.”
Convenience aside, text-messaging can leave a trail of incriminating evidence (notably the “drunk text”) if one isn’t careful.
“I certainly know many guys who love to text because they can talk to as many girls as they want all at the same time,” said Jennifer Christenson, a 22-year-old TV producer from Chicago. “My ex-boyfriend wasn’t smart enough to delete those messages and left his phone lying around.”
For Varney, her relationship with the text-message man from the Lincoln Park bar lasted all of seven months. He broke up with her over e-mail.
“At least he didn’t break up by text,” she said. “But after that, he sent me text messages about how much he regretted it.”
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kpang@tribune.com
