Textual Healing: The Inevitable Break-Up Text

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.

Let’s face it: most relationships come to an end. And when your communication with a guy is mostly through text messages, chances are that a break-up will come via text. But it’s easy enough to be misunderstood while texting when you’re simply trying to have a conversation, so breaking up by text is no easy feat.

Take my friend’s recent experience. She had been casually seeing a guy on and off for a few weeks, and decided it was time to just say no thanks, once and for all. She texted him to let him know she wasn’t “interested in dating right now,” trying to let him down as easily as possible. He wrote back:

“I’m not interested in dating either…just wanna have fun.”

Needless to say, this was not the response my friend was looking for. She expected something like that, but then felt like there was no way she could respond without flat out telling the guy she was over it. For the record, guys, telling a girl you just want to have fun rarely works in convincing us that we should spend time with you. It sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, if I was in my friend’s shoes, I would have just been honest with him at this point, and responded with something like, “I’m not interested in having fun with you either.” Harsh, I know, but message sent loud and clear. If he’s still persisting after that, you have full permission to completely ignore.

However, my friend decided to pull out the other trick utilized by many when dealing with a break-up: the little white lie. She told her text message suitor she had started seeing an ex. Simple and effective, if a bit dishonest. But, it got the job done.

Have you ever ended a relationship over text message? Or have you ever been dumped over text? How did it go down? Send your experiences to submissions AT crushable dot com or leave them in the comments below and you might see them featured in the next installment of Textual Healing.