by Hannah Eisman

Created on: February 12, 2009

Great for Cowards

About three years ago, my daughter was dumped by her boyfriend, via text, to my phone. I had to pass that message on to her. (Yuk) Fortunately I overheard her a little while later excitedly telling her friend "It worked, he dumped me!"

Last year, I got dumped by text.

The problem as I see it is that when a significant proportion of your communication is via text, it seems that any message can be delivered that way. In addition, the true coward can end a relationship without having to face the person they are about to hurt.

When I got dumped I wanted to say but you told me three weeks ago that you definitely wanted me in your life and every time I think we are going OK you pull the rug out from under me and I am so upset and devastated by this. Can't we talk about this? I don't think I can bear it! I love you, I need you, and sometimes, like right now, I really hate you. I thought I had found the person I want to share my life with, and I thought I meant something to you too. Do you really want to go or are you just running away? I can't believe you are doing this to me'!

But what I did write was "Have a nice life", or something equally lame.

Clearly he would have known from that message exactly how I felt about it. Honestly, how can anyone write a long and involved text message that adequately conveys the depth of their feelings? Use emoticons?

And if you do have the energy to write a long, emotional message, the person on the receiving end could get it in eight separate messages, which may or may not arrive at the same time, or may not arrive at all.

If you do send a long and emotional message, make sure you read through what you have written before you send it. We all know how malicious predictive text can be. When you say I hate your lisp', your phone will say I have your kiss'.

And let's not forget the possibility of selecting the wrong name from your contacts list. In a social situation you are not likely to turn to your nephew because he is standing next to your boyfriend and say Let's go somewhere romantic tonight'.

I have resolved to ensure communication via text in my next relationship, if I have one, will be confined to messages such as "running L8" or "did I leave my jacket at your house?"

No kidding, I will say L8. Well, actually, I won't because I am approaching 50 and by the time I have worked out how to type L8 using predictive text, I could have written late 15 times over.

The truth as seen through my eyes is that text provides an easy option for the difficult communications. And it is an easy option. You can say what needs to be said without worrying about how the other person is reacting. I know this because I have done it. You see, before he dumped me, I dumped him. We had a very deep and meaningful conversation, via text, which ended with me telling him I didn't want to continue with the relationship. Yes, I am a coward. I also asked him via text if we could get back together, which is how he later got the opportunity to dump me.

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