A Woman's Guide to Text Messaging

Let me share a few truths about text messaging from a guy's perspective. Men and women are different in our approaches to texting, in some politically incorrect ways that you won't read about in most womens' magazines. As a woman, you can use text-messaging to make your dating life fun again and find a good man.

Text Messaging is a Socially Acceptable Way to Flirt

Today we've come so far in mixing our social lives and technology that text messaging is now an acceptable place to carry on a flirtation. As adults juggling several responsibilities, flirting via text message can add a little bit of lightness to your daily routine. Cultivate the ability to switch gears. One minute you are responding to an important message from a work colleague, or confirming an appointment with the plumber. The next minute you're flirting with a new beau, texting, "I went shopping at the mall. I'm a bad girl, you'll have to spank me later" or "I forgot to wear a bra today. Silly me." (I could go on and on.) But be careful! These are not messages you want to send accidentally to your boss or your subordinates at work! Be careful. However, do not be afraid to join the game of text-flirting. Have some fun with it. Most men will appreciate you for it because we love gadgets, technology and women. Text-flirting brings them all together in one place. 

Men Text to Be Efficient, Not to Be Rude

Men and Women view technology differently. For men, technology offers a way to be more efficient and get things done. Women tend to use technology as a way to be or feel more connected to others. Women use it for efficiency, too. But it comes to the primary motivation to text in a relationship, men tend to use it more for efficiency and women tend to use it more for making a connection.  

A men can feel just as emotionally charged after receiving a text from a woman as women can feel in bonding over a live dinner date. Pay close attention to how you interpret a man's text-messaging habits. What might seem like excessive texting and not enough calling to you might seem like a perfectly normal interaction to a man. The efficiency that comes from getting things done through technology - closing a sale, lining up a date, landing a new job - makes a man feel more masculine. If you flirt with a man over text messages, then he'll associate you with feeling more alive and passionate.

Bottom line: men like using text messaging and computers to be more efficient. By reaching a man through text, you are engaging his masculine instincts, which makes it a good place to carry on a flirtation.

Beware of Text Messaging That Leads to Casual Sex

If the text message flirtation leads to a hook-up, it most likely will sabatoge your chance at a real relationship. For a woman, the dating game involves flirting, being alluring, but also holding back and playing hard to get. Texting and then immediately hooking up is the opposite of playing hard to get.

So, how should a woman interpret the situation where a guy sends a text message seeking to "hang out" or "hook up"? Well, don't rush to condemn the guy. Even a mature man, a good man, can get wrapped up in the hyper-efficiency of text messaging. Consider it from a guy's perpective: "Wow, I can press a few buttons on my cell phone, and a woman will show up on my doorstep!" This is naturally intoxicating for a man, like playing a video game and getting to the next level. So don't hold it against him if he gets carried away at first.

But you need to put a stop to it. Don't indulge his natural inclination to score quickly. It leaves out an important stage of sexual attraction: giving the man a chance to feel like he has won you over. Even if he genuinely likes you, and even if he sincerely wants your first encounter to lead somewhere, then he might lose respect for you if you go from text-to-one-night-stand. That's because you skip out on testing him. Men instinctually want to be challenged and tested, even if their libidos (enabled by efficient technology!) continually push for casual sex. To men, texting equals efficiency. Having a post-text hook up with a man signals a  friends-with-benefits arrangement. If you want to be friends-with-benefits, then it's okay. No judgement. But if you want more, then you'll jeopardize your chance at having a romantic relationship.

That's right: a post-text hookup will kill any chance at a real relationship afterward. Cue the comments from ladies saying, "I married my husband after a one-night stand." Good for these couples. They are the rare exceptions that prove the rule. Also, if he's a habitual seeker of hook-ups, then be ready to field messages every time he's looking for sex. Like a boy playing a video game, he'll text you - and probably other women, too - trying to score by simply pushing buttons on his cell phone. This is efficient, but probably not the storybook flirtation you were hoping for.

X-Rated Words and Naked Pictures: The Double-Standard

Text messaging should be reserved for light, private flirtation, that is PG-rated. Never cross the line into X-rated territory. Today we hear the text-messaging stories coming from American high schools. Girls are getting into trouble for sending pictures of themselves - sans clothing - to their boyfriends, or even to boys they want to impress. And boys are getting into trouble for forwarding those pictures to their friends or posting them on the Internet. The recent case in Westchester County, New York involved a "smut list" posted on Facebook that originated as text messages. NBC's Today Show interviewed girls who who were devastated by this, saying it has ruined their lives and vowing to fight back to save their reputations. None of the boys was interviewed. It's not just girls who are shamed. Ask former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner whether it's a good idea to send X-rated pictures and messages across the internet. 

Women who text naked pictures of themselves or post X-rated words are instantly viewed in a different light by men. It is a double-standard, and it exists because of our natural gender instincts. A man receiving a nude photo or X-rated text from a woman he hardly knows will have the instant, boyish reaction of "that's totally cool!" Soon, he wonders, "who else is she sending these messages and photos to?"

A Woman's Text-Messaging Strategy: Flirt and Go for the Proper Date

Now that you've learned about male instincts and text-messaging, you're ready to dive in. When it comes to knowing what to say and how to flirt, your girlfriends, women's magazines, this site, and your own experience will help you far more than I ever could.

But I can give you a strategy, which is alternately two-fold:

1) Flirt Voraciously and Vivaciously. (No Mundane Conversation) In your texts, turn on the charm. Be playful and bold. Stay away from everyday topics and boring conversation (How was your day? I'm going to the dentist now.) Flirt, flirt, flirt, and only flirt. For tips on what to say, go to Cosmopolitan and other womens magazines, or discuss with the ladies on the WomensHappiness Forum. If you're not a natural at flirting, don't worry. Flirting takes a little bit of time to understand. This is where Cosmo and "Sex and the City" come in handy. They teach women how to flirt. You will probably need to go through a few awkward flirtations to get the hang of it.

Nothing serious, it's all fun, except that you will soon turn the tables on the guy, and go silent until he asks you out on a real date.

2) Go for the Proper Date. Everything you text to your paramour will be flirtation, except for your serious insistence that you will not meet up unless it's for a proper date. That means lunch or dinner together or a creative date that he proposes (miniature golf, concert, art gallery opening, baseball game, etc.).

I think it's okay for a woman to be deadly serious about this. It won't kill the attraction, and if it does, so what? He wasn't going to take you out, anyway. Move on.

If the dude texts and says "let's hang out at my place tonight," a possible reply would be "You must really like texting, because that's all we'll be doing, and not for much longer," or "Can't a nice girl get a proper date in this town?" or "Where have all of the gentlemen gone?" or simply "Wrong answer, dude. You have one more chance."

In an ideal storybook world, he'll ask you out without having to be told. (Maybe even call you!) Unfortunately, our current culture has made men less than gentlemen and women less than ladies. By the way, men are not categorically bad because of this. Women, too, have contributed to our hook-up-and-hang-out dating culture by being all too willing to give it up.

So this is your strategy: First and foremost, flirt with him. Nothing is serious or mundane. It's all light and fun. Unless he pushes for a casual hook up, then feel free to get very serious: take me out on a proper date, buddy. The men who are worth dating will respect this.

Go forth with phone in hand, text and flirt. If you're lucky, you'll find guy who already gets it and asks you out on a real date, without having to be told.

Either way, you won't win if you don't play.

**For a comprehensive understanding of men, dating and long-term relationhips (including how to flirt), see the Seventh Sense Program.

**For more about understanding the psychology of men in relationships, see The Three Brains of Mr. Right eBook.