This Texting Mistake Could Be Ruining Your Life
She thought she was doing it right. SHE WAS NOT DOING IT RIGHT.
I have news. And it’s going to shake some of you to the core. I’m not even kidding.
At a dinner I attended last night, the small talk turned briefly to teens and tweens.
“I just learned something horrifying from my teens, actually,” I said. (Because ‘something horrifying’ is always good for dinner parties with strangers, right? Anyone?!) “My 14-year-old son asked me why I always end my texts with a period. He told me I shouldn’t do that because it’s passive aggressive… and my 17-year-old daughter agreed with him!”
This girl definitely doesn’t end her texts with periods.
“But that’s not true for adults,” my husband laughed. “Maybe teenagers think periods are passive aggressive, but not adults.” Several people at the table nodded in agreement.
“I thought so, too,” I told him and turned back to the table. “But then I looked at my stepdaughters’ texts — and they’re 28 and 30 — and they don’t use periods, either.”
“So I think it’s true,” I concluded. “I think it’s true. And now, I’m kind of freaking out…”
How I felt when I learned the shocking news.
I could tell the others at the table, most ranging in age from mid-30s to well beyond, weren’t convinced. They all said things like, “I use periods in texts,” and “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
I looked over at a younger woman at the table who’d remained strangely quiet. “Do you use periods in texts?” I asked her. She shook her head.
“I don’t,” she said softly.
“And do you think it’s passive aggressive when people use periods in texts to you?”
She paused. “Yes,” she admitted.
The actual expression of someone receiving one of my texts.
After a smattering of nervous laughter, the table grew silent for a moment as we all contemplated the gravity of the situation. I assume that like me, everyone was mentally scrolling through their text messages and thinking of all the people they had inadvertently shown passive aggressive behavior to over the previous weeks, months, YEARS. If their list was anything like mine, it went on and on and on. Babysitters. Teachers. Maintenance men. Friends. Prospective clients. Family members. Co-workers. Acquaintances. Bosses.
He’s started using periods. She knows it’s over.
I always thought my inherent saltiness, my chronic case of foot-in-the-mouthitis, my stubborn inability to speak woman all were to blame for the unrelenting social awkwardness I almost always feel in my core when interacting with others. But could it be that at least in some cases, the social cards were stacked against me before I even met people face to face, simply because every single one of my texts has been passive aggressive FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS?
Find me a cave, someone. A nice deep one with no cell reception. I’m going in it and I’m not coming back out.
He’s going to keep using periods. And if the young folk don’t like it, they can kick rocks.
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