Textual Healing: Oops, Didn’t Mean To Send That

Text messaging might be the easiest and most convenient way to send a note to your friends, but when it comes to communicating with a guy, it can be anything but simple. Whether his messages are short and sweet or lengthy and in-depth, you’re usually left wondering: what is he really trying to say? And even worse, how do I respond? Here at Crushable we want to help you sift through all the subtext and emerge, textually healed.

Have you ever received a text that made you think that it was just not meant for you? This happened to me a few months ago, when I got a text message from an ex (this is a reoccurring theme it seems) at 3:15 a.m. on a Friday night that read, “Hey what’s up, I’m on m hill.” Even though he was referring to my neighborhood (Murray Hill), since I hadn’t heard from the guy in months I just assumed the message was meant for someone else. “I’m probably not the one you wanted to text this to drinkie,” I wrote back.

Of course, I could have just as easily ignored the message, but I was a little curious to see how he would respond. There are many ways to react to a wrongly sent text, and my example is just one of them. Ignoring and deleting is another, and you can also simply go with it and act like it was meant for you. Chances are, it was — like this one that my ex sent me. But by acting like it wasn’t meant for me I gave him an out, just in case he woke up the next morning and regretted sending it in the first place. Completely ignoring him would have accomplished the same thing and closed the door to any contact between us in the future. In other words, it would have sent the message, “I’m not interested.”

Now what if you accidentally send something to a guy? How do you recover? A friend of mine told me this story: one night she was out with her friends, drinking, dancing and having a good time. She wanted to send a note to a guy she had been seeing casually, but her judgment was clearly impaired since she decided to send him something to the effect of, “I hope you are dancing like no one is watching.” To make matters worse, with drunk hands and predictive text she ended up hoping he was dancing like “on one” was watching. When she woke up the next morning and realized what she had sent, she was mortified. And, to make matters worse, she showed her phone to her friend, who accidentally resent the same text — again. How does one recover from such a faux pas?

I’m not sure how my friend recovered, but I would recommend laughing it off. Everyone enjoys drunk texts and even a guy you are dating casually can appreciate that sometimes we make bad texting decisions. Yes, it’s embarrassing and yes, you open yourself up for mockery from your friends and date. But, you can probably easily remind them all of a time when they did the same. The only way to prevent this from happening is to put your phone away and avoid texting when you’re not thinking clearly. But really, we all know that will never happen.

Now it’s your turn to tell us your story. Have you ever sent a text you didn’t mean to send? Have you ever received an embarrassing text meant for someone else? How did you handle it? Leave your stories in the comments below or send them to submissions at crushable.com. You may see your story featured in an upcoming Textual Healing.