Just text me when the world ends
Amanda Cosgrove
Issue date: 1/25/07 Section: Lifestyles
|
As of late, the media has been reporting celebrity catastrophes related to mobile to mobile messaging. Recall Paris Hilton's Sidekick hacking, when e-mails between Hilton and a friend bashing frenemie Jessica Simpson were released to the public. And, we can't forget Britney Spears' classy move of informing her ex-husband that their marriage was over through a text message. Where has the interpersonal communication gone? And I am not limiting this only to the troubled and famous. Let's get personal.
Recently, a "friend" and I got in a dispute over what seemed to me like a sensitive and important issue; to them, not so much, which became apparent when, after a week of not speaking, we made eye contact at a party, yet no words were spoken. After I made my social rounds, signed a few autographs, and posed for some photos, I left. About an hour later, my phone informed me I had just received a text message (cue dramatic musical score). I flipped open my RAZR (with a wallpaper that includes a picture of this "friend") and started the beginning of what appeared to be the end. The text message was from my "friend."
A week of silence and you text me? Not even a phone call - a text message. Ironically, the message said, "I want to talk." Wait a minute. Was I not at the same party with you for over an hour, where we could have talked, but instead you waited until I left to text me that you wanted to talk? Um, ok. I didn't respond. Suddenly, three more text messages, including one that only sent half of the message with statements such as, "You're stubborn," "I know you feel bad," and (my personal favorite) "I don't need to talk to you." How does one respond to that? I went to bed.
The next morning I awoke to an AIM message from my "friend." This time it was an apology - about the text messages.
We have now come full circle. For lack of a better word, condemn me via text messaging with a follow up apology on instant messenger. What a copout! You end things with my phone and apologize to my screen name.
Pop culture junkies, this is the end. Have we really boiled down to being content with ending our relationships through a text message? If someone you care about is going to leave, is a text message the best way to stop him? How impersonal! How insincere! How selfish! What if Zach Braff just text messaged Natalie Portman that they will just eventually figure things out, instead of running back into her arms, tears and all, at the end of "Garden State"?
If you care about someone, don't let them go. And if you don't, then I guess there's no problem reducing them to a screen name and a phone number.
"Do you really want to delete this contact?"
"Do you really want to remove this person from your friend's list?"
And so, if your friends have just become numbers, screen names and Facebook profiles you can just delete from your life. Forever. [Send Message]
Be the first to comment on this story