I love my iPhone. I love Facebook. I love Instagram. I love iCloud and linked calendars. I'm connected and I've got a pretty high Klout score to prove it.

But, I'll tell you what I'm starting to dislike...

Texting.

I remember the days that you called and left a message on someone's answering machine and if the tape was out of space, then you were out of luck. Before that people had just call and see if you answered. Before that people had to mail letters. And before that people had to GO TO YOUR HOME (and it was ON FOOT and UPHILL BOTH WAYS) to talk to you. Talk about dedication.

No one does that anymore. No one shows up unannounced or surprises people. No one leaves voicemails. No one writes letters - we hardly write emails - who is going to write a letter?! (Other than Gabe who writes amazing letters complete with wax seal.)

We all text. Maybe we call first, but then we text. And we expect immediate gratification in the form of a text back. Right? You look for those three little dots on your iMessage that mean someone is typing. Heaven forbid they get distracted and those little dots just stay there for awhile.

They're mad at me. They don't like me. They're avoiding me. I said something wrong.

Damn. 

It's sincerely starting to give me anxiety. 

While you're taking your precious time texting back a.k.a. hating me a.k.a. just living your life in a way that doesn't involve your iPhone, I'm over here analyzing it. Not sleeping. Checking my phone over and over again because maybe it's on silent. 

Nope. It's not on silent and there's no message. 

Maybe it's on Do Not Disturb. (zips into settings) 

Nope. Not on Do Not Disturb. Still no message.

Maybe my iPhone is broken. I should turn it off and back on.

(Why is it taking so long to power on?)

Nope. No little red number has appeared next to my messages.

I'm just gonna wait 10 minutes before I check again.

(4 minutes pass.)

This must have been 10 minutes. Oh, only 4 minutes.

No message.

Maybe I should check my iPad messages.

Maybe I should chill the fuck out because I've wasted a massive amount of time waiting for someone who has a life (or maybe actually is avoiding me and I shouldn't be wasting my time with them) to respond to me and I've got nothing to show for it.

We've taken the meaning and work out of communication and replaced it with laziness and anxiety.

Maybe if we stopped texting so much, we'd get on with our lives.

Of course, we're doing this to ourselves and I am the guiltiest of all, but as long as I can't sleep and I'm thinking about it, then I should at least get a blog post out of it.