I thought that I had kicked the habit of drunk texting back in my freshman year of college.
My not-so-boyfriend, but guy I was seeing was seeing at the time, was back in our hometown while I was supposed to be exploring the potentials of college life. (My version of that was moping about this high school boy who clearly wasn’t worth my time in the long run. Fuck… I guess I learned some important life lessons from that one?)
Drinking beer in our guy friend’s dorm was doomed to put testosterone on the mind. I took out my not-so-smart cell phone and started typing. He hadn’t responded to another text from earlier in the day. Being down on myself, I wrote what I intended to be an innocent text,
“Do you like good girls or bad girls? You like bad girls don’t you?”
Reading it the way I had intended, the only embarrassment I felt was that I was legitimately a “good girl” and didn’t want to waste my time on a bad guy. Re-reading the text that night, and now – horrified with a palm up to my face, peeking through my fingers – it sounds like I had a different intention. I might as well have whipped out a red flag saying, “ONLY LOOKING FOR BAD BOYS.” Or, “HI, I’M A SLUT!”
After many a communication courses in college, and head shaking experience after head shaking experience, I can flat out tell you that most communication via cell phones = NO BUENO! Especially when it comes to dating. It’s hard enough to do when you’re sober, let alone Lindsay Lohan drunk. What the sender reads one way can be (and many times is) interpreted in an entirely different manner than the receiver.
Luckily, or not-so-luckily, he never answered my text. But I was the one left mortified for two reasons. 1. I sounded like a hooker. 2. He never even answered to my hooker-like attempt!
Looking back, what a loser! Not responding to a hooker-ish text by one of the girls you were seeing?! What’s wrong with that image? … … But in all honesty, I was lucky that it didn’t turn into a mess bigger than that. In the long run, he was probably doing me a favor since he ditched out on me about two weeks later. #GHOSTED.
But lesson learned hunnies! It took one nauseating incident to realize that drunk texting was not for me. And I stood by that all throughout college and beyond. I’m currently six years out and held onto the promise that I would never initiate a drunk texting convo. Exceptions will be made for those who text you and are already drunk – looking for some love in a drunk text back, friends, or anyone who you aren’t currently dating or trying to date.
One promise to myself – no drunk texting… That’s easy. But add today’s social media trends in there and it’s a whole different ball game. 1000 new ways for me to embarrass myself! Okay, not if you use them properly… Or have enough self-love that you don’t care about the outcome either way, but still, it’s like social etiquette or something. Besides, one of the worst things you can do with someone you’re trying to tie down is make them feel awkward or uncomfortable. Take it from the queen of making everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Legit – today’s social media is the new drunk text. And I thought I had been so wise as to have mastered this. Let me just say, contact lists and text messaging shouldn’t be the only thing put on block during this vulnerable state. And the key here is VULNERABLE. But we’ll circle back to that.
There are two sides to my brain… Okay, there’s multiple sides to my brain, but right now I’m breaking it down into varsity and junior varsity (experienced and naive).
Being 27 and single, I’ve had tons of experience fucking up, royally fucking up, playing it cool, and everything in between. In my mind, when I first start initiating some kind of interaction with a guy to let him know I might be interested, it would be ideal to pull from my playing it cool to somewhere in between experience. But for some terrifying reason, my JV mind takes over. DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR OWN JV MIND.
As recent as a couple of weekends ago I reached out to a guy who had been completely off my radar, but for whatever reason, he was suddenly on it. (Maybe because his friend was finally off of it). I sent him a message. If you have to send someone a message instead of an iMessage aka text because you don’t have their phone number WARNING, RED BUTTON, HAZZARD, ERROR, STOP. DON’T DO IT! In my JV mind I’m like a little puppy – yeah, yeah this will put me on his radar! Yes, little puppy, ignorant of the world around you – it will put you on his radar, you’re right – AS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SPAZ. And it works both ways, men to women, Instagram to Facebook. You don’t want to ask the girl on the couch over from me at the Super Bowl party what her latest social media stalker had to say. And you definitely don’t want to be the one referred to as a stalker on any dating anything.
So how did my JV message go? Just as I thought it would from my varsity experience –- no response. Just like my ex at the beginning of this post.
What I discovered: my need to reach out in a moment of vulnerability (and you’re feeling this way much stronger because you’re drinking) is for reassurance. And as you can tell, the drunk message does not lead to reassurance. It only leads to more insecurity and upset feelings. And those feelings that you keep avoiding will be brought to the next new guy and next drunk message until you face them. It becomes one whole big mess of negativity. You’ll be so lucky as to if the receiver doesn’t respond because starting something on those terms is just that: messy, negative, and choosing to try to start something off on a sour down note.
Instead, get over your old ghosts first by facing them head on.
I apologize to all of the victims from my drunk messaging and just know, I’m working on turning over that idiotic leaf… But, in my defense, you should be happy a smart/hot girl is hitting on you in the first place! PUH-LEASE.
Get Smart. Read Bold.
- Don’t waste time on someone who isn’t worth yours
- Stay away from any sort of iMessage, text message, social media message when you’re Lindsay Lohan drunk
- You want a potential love-interest to see you in a positive light, not a negative one
- Drunk messaging makes you vulnerable
- DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR OWN JV MIND
- If you have to send a social media message instead of a text, don’t message at all!
- You don’t want to be known as a social media stalker
- There is such a thing as social media etiquette (apparently), and you don’t want to make people feel awkward or uncomfortable
- Get over your old ghosts FIRST by facing them head on
- Taking all of the above into consideration, flirt on!
Bold. Boss. Beautiful.
Bold. Boss. Beautiful. 