The Way You Text Someone You Just Started Dating Says Everything About Your Relationship

I have an imperfect tone when it comes to texting. TBH, calling it "imperfect" is me being very generous to myself. When I'm distracted by a podcast, I text like a gruff, under-bridge troll. When I'm trying to seem cool to a successful boss lady, I become a manic, word-spewing millennial. When it comes to texting in a new relationship, I think a lot about what words to use so I don't come across as a disinterested jerk or an overeager teenager, both of which definitely scare off potential suitors.

Because 2017 is opposite year, if I'm interested in you, I'll probably wait a really long time to text you back. When I feel a bit more "meh," I'll text you like I'm entering some sort of "first comment" competition on Instagram. Again, I'm 28, the dating book The Game is over ten years old, and texting like an a-hole has gotten me into more fights than marriages. (37:0 ratio.)

Why is texting style so important? Texting can be the first indicator of what a person is like when you start dating, especially now that we all meet by exchanging numbers with strangers whose faces we swiped via algorithm. Are their texts including lots of vowels? They seem friendly. Are they overzealous with their "LOLs"? No thank you. Emoji game 100? Yes please.

I wouldn't encourage you to analyze your date's succinct, punctuation-less texts like they are the Meyers Briggs test, but the way you text your partner can be a great indicator of how you feel about your new relationship.

You Reply As Soon As You Can Like An Adult

Assuming you are more functional than I am, you're probably replying to your new boo right away because you like them and don't want to leave them hanging. First off, it's good that you like this person. Replying to texts right away is also a great sign that you are comfortable and confident with them knowing how you feel about them.

It probably also means that they've been communicating effectively with you, and you want to return the favor. You two sound like a functional pair that would make functional babies who could possibly become president and lead to a more functional world. Cheers to not playing games.

You Send Memes And Articles Back And Forth All Day

You two are fun, and I want to hang out. DM-ing Daquan's genial Instagram posts back and forth throughout a work day means that you both share a sense of humor. It also means that you're thinking of each other throughout the work day.

That said, if you're Snapping back and forth and there is no real side dish of thoughtful texts or meaningful attempts at plans, you might be caught in the not-friend-not-yet-a-girlfriend zone. If you're having fun, keep having fun. If you want more, ask when he's free for dinner next. Easy.

You Use All Of The Vowels And Emojis

As long as you aren't using the monkey-covering-her-eyes-in-shame emoji, sending those little adorable faces back and forth means you're both feeling flirty. (To be fair, if your new person isn't sending you heart eye emojis, they might be super into you, but just not super into emojis. We all emote differently on the internet, so cut them some slack.)

The other awkward "I'm-overtly-trying-to-flirt-but-have-no-jokes" move is to elongate vowels in quotidien words like "amazing." (See: "amaaaaaazing.") The vowel-extensions either drive me nuts or keep me coming back for more. If you and your cutie are sending lots of "o"s and "y"s at the tail end of words, you're conveying a pleased and playful tone. I particularly see a triple "hahaha" as a great sign that you've actually made each other laugh out loud. (Also, I am weirdly averse to getting an "LOL" in a text. Am I too Grandma?)

You Show Little To No Emotion Via Your Vocabulary

Either you are really not feeling this person, or you are both struggling when it comes to the text game. As someone who has sent the text "dope" to a possible boo thang in the past 24 hours, I feel you. There's no need to overanalyze a straightforward, exclamation-points-less text as long as you are both open and communicative with each other in real life. Days are busy, life is hard, texting is annoying, and maybe you're both just not that into doing it.

Also, a hot tip I just learned: I started turning on my text preview so that I see the actual text of any text messages I get when my home screen is locked. This makes it so that when I open my phone later, I have a bunch of little red notifications over in iMessage to remind me to reply to texts I may have gotten in transit. #TryToBeBetter.

You Wait Hours Before Replying To Each Other

I literally do not know what this means, but for me, it usually means that I am head-over-heels for someone and going out of my way to seem unavailable. (Terrible call.) Or, it means I found that person to be a bit of a socio, and I'm doing my best to ignore them forever. There's really no way of reading into why in a new relationship, you and your partner might not reply to each others' texts right away. You could either both be totally over things, or you could both be adapting to each others' attempts to play hard to get. That game usually ends in crickets, so just say what you mean. We're not in middle school anymore, be a person and reply as soon as you can do so thoughtfully. (I'm working on this.)

In the same way that some people post multi-paragraph sermons in honor of their "best friend in the world" (and sex partner) on Instagram, while others would never be caught dead doing that (hi), all people text differently. Your text chemistry with a Bumble match you haven't even met yet could be fire when compared to your chemistry with someone you dated for years, and that still doesn't necessarily mean Bumble boo is the person for you.

Yes, sometimes clever banter and a similar sense of humor can lead to sparks forever, but it's important not to put too much emphasis on texts, because they are just letters on a screen that were probably composed while juggling a cold brew and trying to avoid a pile of (hopefully) dog waste on the street. Text like a pro, but be even better to your date in person. That's the sign of a real grown up.

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