What The Type Of Texts Your Partner Sends You Reveals About Your Relationship
There are about as many different ways to communicate as there are types of partnerships. Texting reveals so much about your relationship and what brings you and your boo together. If you doubt me, pick up your phone and scroll through your messages. Do you really talk to everyone in your inbox in exactly the same way? I'm willing to bet that you text your best friend, your mom, and your boo in completely different ways and circumstances depending on the nature of your relationship. It follows that different kinds of partnerships would have different ways of texting, too.
The length of the relationship, the comfort of the people within the relationship, and what's going on in your lives at any given moment all influence the ways in which people communicate, according to relationship and etiquette expert April Masini of Relationship Advice Forum. "If you're dating someone and it's a new relationship, you may be communicating multiple times a day because romance is strong and you're both chatty, or you may be communicating a few times a week because you're both playing the field and there's no real commitment yet," she elaborates.
Here's more on what your texting styles reveal about how long you have been dating and how serious you both are.
1. Texts To Check In Or Make Plans
If you and your boo only text a couple times throughout the day to check in with one another and make concrete plans, you've either started dating recently or are at total #relationshipgoals. It might sound counterintuitive to place these two kinds of partnership in the same texting category. But when you first start dating, you probably communicate a bit sparingly because you don't want all the spillover from your day to wind up in a condensed text message.
When you are in a secure and stable relationship, you might text sparingly for a different reason: You know that you communicate best when you see each other in person. Obviously, there is more than one way to thrive within a relationship, but texting hides a lot of valuable signals — such as tone of voice and body language — that help clearly communicate how a person is really feeling. You don't want that to get lost in the texting, so you build in plenty of time to see each other and save what you have to say until you can speak it in the flesh.
2. Late-Night Texts That Are Mostly Sexts
The two of you have been seeing one another for a matter of days or weeks. You are comfortable enough with one another to articulate your desires and express how much you want each other. At the same time, your relationship is flushed with so much new energy that you haven't yet seen each other's flaws. The blossoming relationship might even have glossed over enough of your life's stressors that you don't even know what you would complain about over text message to your partner. Savor this new, heady phase of your relationship, even as you anticipate a deeper style of communication that is sure to come.
3. Texts When You're Bored At Work
You have been dating for at least six months, but it feels like longer. The two of you have settled into a comfortable routine, and you feel like you know each other very well. There are no secrets between the two of you. You've already pooped at their house. The danger at this stage is using the relationship as an escape from your everyday life stressors and not tending to it properly. Make sure you and your partner are still building in plenty of time to appreciate and dote on each other.
4. Mostly Texts In Memes
You might have only been dating for a month or two, or you might have been dating for years. The two of you love to laugh and be silly together, and you both genuinely get a thrill out of being around one another. You know that texting is not the best way to seriously communicate, so you reserve your more intimate talks for when you are in person. At the same time, you love talking to one another and you know that texting can be hella entertaining. You look forward to getting a notification from your partner, but you don't sweat it if they don't get back to you right away. You know that they'll be totally present when you meet up later on in the week.
5. Texts About Anything And Everything, Constantly, All Of The Time
You've been dating for at least a year or more, and your partner has become your closest confidant and your best friend. You've probably had at least one, maybe two, fights through text. You've come close to breaking up at least once and have tested your boundaries with each other. You've considered trying to text less, but then something new will happen that you just have to tell the other person about.
Even though you have come so far together, be sure that you aren't putting so much pressure on your relationship that it will crumble under the weight. A relationship needs quality time and nourishment in order to thrive, and that just can't happen over text. Try to text less throughout the day so you can save up everything you have to tell each other for a phone call before bed. Taking a step back from the intensity of your communication might give your relationship the room it needs to breathe.
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