54 Stops On The Emotional Roller Coaster Of Not Being Texted All Day

I have a love-hate relationship with texting. It's about 80 percent hate and 20 percent love.

I enjoy reaching out to people -- I mean, I have to in order to make plans with them -- but digital outreach is a black hole of doom. Doom and despair. It’s a tricky mind game we never tire of playing.

For the sender, texting is supposed to be about mastering a message. For the receiver, texting is supposed to be about hearing that message loud and clear. But things have changed.

Texting is no longer about the message itself. Texting is all about time and mindfulness of time's loss... or so it seems.

Why do I spend ages constructing a text or thinking about how long it's taking to get one back?

Texting turns friends into enemies. It’s supposed to make us closer with the people in our lives, but sometimes it just ends up pushing them further away.

There’s no guarantee we’ll hear back from our digital friends within a designated timeframe -- or ever, for that matter. And whether they take five or fifty minutes to answer, I take the silence personally.

The thing is, you know almost everyone is always on their phones. I see it all the time.

We consider it more of an anomaly if someone is spending more time immersed in nature than on a mobile device.

F*ck it: Even if we are in nature, we're probably also on our phones. If people refuse to reply to me, I don't write it off as an accident.

We’re never 'too busy' to text. We walk and text. We gym and text. Some people can’t even pee without taking their phones to the toilet.

In waiting for a text back, I ride waves of existential crises.

I delve into the depths of my soul, questioning all of the decisions that have led me up to that particularly daunting point in my life: the one where I’ve undoubtedly placed the entirety of my self-worth on a single buzzing sound.

Behold the emotional roller coaster of waiting for the text:

1. This article I just read is so on-point. I think I’m gonna send it to Brian.

2. Eh, on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t.

3. No, shut up, Sheena. You’re a confident young woman. Send it.

4. Sent. I am woman, hear me roar.

5. Hmm, it’s been 20 minutes and nada…

6. Is my phone working?

7. Hold up, lemme send these 592 texts to other people real quick in the meantime.

8. Wait, is he mad at me? Did I say something wrong?

9. It must’ve been that totally blasé way I acted, like, three weeks ago.

10. Note to self: Stop acting blasé.

11. Am I totally incapable of interpreting social cues?

12. Why has no one ever told me this?

13. What is life? What is the meaning of life?

14. Come on, phone. Ring. Vibrate. You're too expensive to be this f*cking silent.

15. I have no friends.

16. I need new friends.

17. I should move across the country and make new friends.

18. I’ll just go to Verizon to make sure everything’s okay.

19. What’s that, Verizon guy? My phone is working?

20. No, YOU’RE stupid. Who asked you, anyway?

21. Oh, right. That was me.

22. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ll just reset my phone.

23. I’m fine. I don’t need a text to make me happy.

24. Just kidding -- I do.

25. No one loves me. What is love?

26. “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me…”

27. I probably just don’t have service in here.

28. Oh, the text was green when it sent. Doesn’t that mean that it didn’t go through?

29. You know what, if I were living in the fifties, I wouldn’t even be having this godforsaken problem.

30. I was meant to live in a *simpler* time.

31. Like "Mad Men." Damn, that Betty Draper is always impeccably dressed…

32. I don’t even like texting. Just because everyone else likes it doesn’t mean I do.

33. Okay, time to start drinking.

34. I’ll have just one.

35. Numb me, dammit! Numb me!

36. Okay, I’ll just have two.

37. I think I’ll take it upon myself to quadruple-text my lover. That’s always a good idea.

38. “Got a long list of ex-lovers, they’ll tell you I’m insaaaane…”

39. Taylor Swift. Killin’ the game right now.

40. 
I bet she got Calvin by incessantly texting him.

41. *Takes up a new sport to kill some time*

42. What the f*ck am I doing? I don’t even like sports. I was a drama geek in high school.

43. *Reminisces* Man, I miss West Side Sto-

44. OMG! It vibrated! Thank God.

45. …It’s just Mom. Why? WHY, MOM?

46. WHY DO YOU EXIST, MOM?

47. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I say anything. Love you, ma.

48. This dude sitting next to me is constantly texting someone. How does he have so many texting buddies? Can I have some?

49. In two months, it’ll be my half-birthday. Brian is definitely planning me an epic party. Or he must be taking a really, really big shit.

50. It’s probably one of those shits that takes forever to come out. He’s pushing. Been there, yo. I hope he has toilet paper. I HATE when I run out of toilet paper on the can.

51. Seriously? It’s been an hour. What did I do to deserve this? Why does God hate me so much?

52. This is worse than my colonoscopy.

53. Seriously, Mom. Stop texting me.

54. Oh. OH. IT'S HIM. Hallelujah.