Being a “dude” myself I have to ask about the current texting phenomena that is going on.
It’s primarily a chick/young people thing right?
My nieces (16-20), sister (45), wife (30) and her boss (female 40) can’t seem to get enough of it.
And of any guys I know that do it, it’s primarily teen guys presumably texting girlfriends.
Do you know any adult males who regularly use texting as a main form of communication (besides replying to their wives and girlfriends)?
My theory is that it goes all the way back to gradeschool where girls loved the game of passing handwritten notes back and forth during class and even in their 30s and 40s are reliving the childhood fun. Something the guys were never really into.
I’m an adult male, I text alot but not as much as most of my friends.
I think patterns of mobile phone usage differ from country to country but it has usually been far cheaper to use text messages than to call others in this country, Ireland.
Yea, when I ended up single again at 36 and started dating I started doing the text thing. Mostly in response to the younger women I was meeting who were big on texting. Now I use it pretty frequently for those one-off or quick back-and-forth exchanges when I just don’t want to talk on the phone.
Yeah my friend (40, married, kid) messages his best buddy (40, married, kids) all the time, usually about golf or silly in-jokes between the two of them. They send pics too.
My friend also texts me, usually about business stuff. My brother (30) and two of my other guy friends (28) text me as well too.
I wouldn’t say that any of us use texting as our main mode of conversation but we do use it when it’s the best option.
I teach high school and high school dudes certainly text–mostly to make or confirm plans or ask “where the fuck are you?” or “what’s our homework tonight?”. This is a lot of what girl texting is, too. They also use it to chat up girls–it’s a standard phase now in the courtship process, in between “talking in school” and “talking on the phone”, and a HUGE boon to the shy ones.
It certainly does vary. There’s no gender divide on the matter in Britain either. I’ll text far more often than phone anybody, and that’s for work as well as social contact.
I text a little bit (27 yo dude). If it’s going to be more than 2 “exchanges” (text/response), then I’d rather just call the person. Exceptions are when people can’t talk on the phone while at work or school. A text should ask a very specific question (“Are you showing up for trivia?”) or make a statement (“I rule you!”). Anything that is vague (“what’s up.”) or requires a lot of typing to answer (“Tell me about the hookers in Vegas”) should be left to an actual phone conversation.
P.S. - If you text me a question (“How long was man at the bottom of the Marianis Trench?”), and I text you the answer (“For 20 mintues.”), don’t text me back “OK”. That’s fucking wasteful.
My husband (63) texts his best buddy all the time too – pictures and jokes and setting up lunch dates. He even texts while driving. Deserted country roads, but still . . . :rolleyes:
I’m male and 34, and while I text a lot (average 10-12 a day), it’s almost always in reply to a text I received from a woman. My male friends and I prefer to talk or e-mail.
IME guys in European teen circles text at least as much as girls, if not more. But I agree with An Gadai that it varies from country to country; noone seems to do it here in Montreal.
I send one or two dozen a month, probably. Maybe more depending on just who I’m texting with. I’ve sent that many in the past few days 'cause I was bored while waiting for a concert to start Friday and a (hot) friend I’ve not talked to in a while decided to chat me up a day or two before that.
Left to my own devices, it’s generally just a quick “Hi! Thinking of you!” or something of that nature.
But it’s mostly because it’s so damn slow. I type more than a hundred words a minute. I talk more than a hundred words a minute. I think more than a hundred words a minute. I text… 30 words a minute, maybe? It’s like trying to download something on dialup… it can be done, but if it’s anything of significant size that needs to be handled, it gets really frustrating really fast.