See and this is different than “I don’t text” - you could just say, when someone says they’ll text you, “Oh man, I should warn you that I’m pretty bad about keeping my cell charged and in my pocket - if you need me to get back to you quickly you might <insert suggestion>”
My own mother frequently calls my husband’s cell phone when she wants to talk to me - because I’m notoriously poor at keeping my phone charged and within reach, and he is not 
One, nothing on earth will teach you to check your phone regularly like having a crush.
Two, the only real"deal breaker" anyone has suggested is if you aren’t willing to handle the logistics of dating–setting times and places–by text. You say you “don’t refuse”, so I don’t know if you are willing to do this or not. To me, if you aren’t, that’s you having something so minor be a strike against everyone else, not the other way around.
I really, really think you are too worried about this. It will work itself out.
At this point, not texting would be a near dealbreaker for me. Texting is fun and practical, and I’m not even sure how I ever lived without picture texting. I’d also get extremely annoyed by a person who didn’t have a smartphone. So tiresome.
Bonus points for having an iPhone, so that I can use my iPad for texting with them too. But no demerits for Android or anything…
There’s one work friend who gets left out of everything because she doesn’t even have texting available, nor does she have facebook. Most of us at least message each other through facebook if we’re not directly texting each other. When we plan a get-together like going to Christkindlmarket last week, she always gets left out. Even if we remember to ask her, it’s difficult to coordinate with her because someone has to remember to call her when we’re group texting/messaging as a unit.
So we knew she wanted to go, but we ended up leaving her out because each thought someone else must have called her. No one actually called anyone, and it wasn’t until we were there that we realized no one called her with the date and time.
At another event, I was meeting two other people and we were all coming separately. I wasn’t sure exactly where they meant then they said “the dock” (a bar) because one friend has a boat docked at a harbor nearby. And then the friend with the worst sense of direction ever took a wrong turn and was nowhere near either the boat or the bar. In her case, neither texting nor calling would work, but we switched to video call so she could show me where the hell she was.
We’re all in our mid-40’s to early 50’s.
I think refusing to text is a bit of a deal breaker. I get a really anxious pang whenever my phone rings with a call, because I rarely get calls any more aside from my mother. Work texts me all the time (on days I’m scheduled but not there yet) and that’s not a big deal. If work were to actually call me, there’s an emergency or I seriously fucked something up. I don’t want to get a call. Even my doctor’s offices and the pharmacy either email or text, no phone calls.
I also think that people who don’t use text, have no idea how much they’re being left out.
Would you really want to be with someone who isn’t on your wavelength anyway? This may be a dealbreaker for some, but certainly not all. I’m trying and failing to come up with a reason why you should care. If you don’t like to text, there are plenty of potential partners in your age range who also don’t like to text. Makes sense to me to find someone with whom you’re compatible in this regard, and not someone who’ll get upset when they text you a dozen times but you don’t want to text them back.
If you’re newly single, it certainly doesn’t hurt to be open-minded to new things. I think that general close-mindedness is a red flag for most people, but only if it encompasses more than your choice of communication style.
This whole story has a bizarro-world level of weirdness to it. You never see your work-friend in person? Nobody thought to say to her face, “Hey we’re having a party next week, you should come?” Not once?
The story was that they knew they were going out in a group and they knew she wanted to come–they told her that much. But all the practical date/time/place logistics were worked out over the course of the week in a group text, and no one called her to tell her the final details because everyone thought that someone else had. That makes perfect sense to me–it all exists in this one place, so I don’t think about it in other cases. Like people who calendar really consistently can’t remember what they are doing tomorrow at two because they wrote it down. And really, honestly, refusing to even passively participate in group texts is incredibly inflexible. If remaining free of phone tech is that important to a person, they are going to have to take a lot of responsibility for reaching out to others and following up on things.
I’m sorry, but i see that as unreasonable. I still know enough people who have flip phones without free text messaging where I’ll ask someone new if it’s ok to communicate with them that way. In this case if the group knew she couldn’t receive text messages, and just assumed “someone else must have called her,” then it sounds like a case of clueless self-absorption on everyone else’s part. Not hers.
This doesn’t very sound very nice. You call this person your friend?
For a really close friend, sure. But for someone who is in my “friend group”, a person I enjoy talking to but am in no way intimate with? At some point, if you want to communicate with people you have to meet them where they are.
It’s also not very nice to ask everyone else to make special accommodations for you because you don’t want to learn something new.
Refusing to even passively monitor texts is like having a super strict voluntary diet. It’s a really weird quirk that your close friends will do their best to accommodate but will sometimes screw up, and will cause casual acquaintances to somewhat avoid you in some contexts because accommodating you is more bother than the casual friendship inspires people to undertake.
As to immediacy of replies… I live out in the middle of nowhere and often, my texts don’t come through in a timely matter. Every single person who knows me, understands it might be days before I can respond. If it’s more pressing, they call. And it’s completely no big deal at all. One friend will not text over the weekend no matter what. Another limits texts to barely three word short bursts. If mine show up in a timely manner and it’s just idle chit chat, I answer at my leisure and inclination. Which is the same for most everybody, I’d expect. Which leads me to say that absolutely no one gets bent out of shape over the others’ texting habits. It’s just a non-issue.
As long as you’re willing, that is. 
Taking the time to phone, or god forbid *ask *in person, is making special accommodations? Wow, I sure am glad that those in my life can be arsed to go that arduous extra mile to include me. Sure I hope I’ve earned all that extra effort. I don’t mean to start getting snarky, as I really have appreciated everyone’s insight, but I feel like we’re now talking about a different issue altogether.
So you guys are all fine with your phone going off 24/7 for all these largely inane text message communications?
The problem today is that there are so many communication channels that it gets pretty hard to choose the correct one for a given type of communication.
I uninstalled Whatsapp (very big here in the Netherlands) because I don’t need to hear what’s going on in my nephews’ lives on a daily basis.
I guess some people like to keep in touch multiple times a day while others find that unnecessary or even annoying. Would that be a deal breaker for either party?
Personally, I don’t mind talking on the phone, but I hate not being able to reach people on the phone, so I usually don’t bother. For some strange reason it’s much harder to get a hold of people now that we all walk around with cell phones than it was back when we only had landlines.
Can you imagine if you worked with someone who flat refused to read emails? Do you not see how even if people were willing to try to work with them, they’d end up missing out on a lot? And would you not, at times, gets somewhat frustrated if they acted like they were the normal one and everyone else was somehow being difficult?
You’re not that person. You are apparently willing to at least read texts. Refusing to even read them is exactly like refusing to even read email.
People have said, over and over, that the point is that you don’t have to be “on call” 24/7. If someone calls me, I feel like I have to answer right then–it’s like they are knocking on my door. If someone texts me, it’s like they sent me a letter. I don’t even have to look at it until I have a lull in whatever I am currently doing. I know lots of people who keep their notifications off for exactly this reason.
It’s not just a feeling, that’s the only way it works…
What you are describing is email. Text messages make my phone beep/buzz and fill up its lock screen and are thus still rather immediate. That gets old fast for stuff that is both relatively unimportant and also not time sensitive.
Yes. A text is exactly like an email, but 1) without the clunky, multi-step interface that makes it a bother to have an exchange of “Heading home. Do we need milk?”/“Yes. Thanks” and 2) can be received even when you don’t have internet access (less relevant now, but a large part of why texts evolved).
If you don’t want notifications, you can easily turn them off while leaving the ringer on for calls.
Sure, I can agree with this part. But I think this is a different issue from what **SeaDragonTattoo **is saying, which is what I find. . . strange. In that case “people” were clearly not willing to try to work with them. She (he? sorry, SDragon) almost make it sound like the person who doesn’t text is not worthy, or deserves to be punished or something. If “friend” in that story really just means a casual acquaintance with whom no particular bond exists, then no, I don’t supposed it’s necessary to make undue efforts, but, and maybe I’m in the minority, if I value my relationship with someone (whatever that relationship happens to be) it will not occur to me to not include them just because making arrangements take a bit more effort. You(general you) have done a nice job of describing the benefits of texting and why you enjoy it but I’m not sure anyone will ever be able to explain to me how we got to the place where our own convenience trumps everything else, including our relationships. You tried to flip it around and say it is not nice to expect everyone to change their methods to accommodate me (I did not take this personally, btw) but I think they are slightly different things.
It’s a generational thing. Ten years ago I could not understand why anyone would send a text message: “Why don’t you just call?”
Now I totally embrace text messaging, but it has to be worthy of a message. My kids text me to find out when I’m picking them up. My ex texts me to find out when I’m dropping them off.
A good buddy texts me when something just happened in a hockey game.
Apart from that I get few texts. Another friend’s wife texts me when she’s drunk, but that’s another story…
no, because they wouldn’t be working there very long.
Do you not understand that there are people who for whom texting is not free? there are prepaid plans which charge you for each message sent or received.
Your phone beeps once then that’s the end of it. After that, there will be a notification on your screen letting you know you got a text. There is nothing remotely immediate about any of this unless you have OCD.
nitpick- iPhones will repeat the notification 30 seconds later.