In an age when phone calls are as outdated as gaucho pants, texting has become a part of our everyday lives. While we ladies can decode each otherâs text messages without batting an eyelash, weâre more than a little puzzled on why guys donât share our same love for emojis and exclamation points.
Itâs clear to see that guys approach texting way differently than girls do. Here are a few of the differences we found!
Emoticons
Ever notice that there seems to be a serious disconnect between guys and girls when it comes to the subject of emoticons?
Girls
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Whether weâre texting our girlfriends about going out for drinks later or simply asking our boyfriend how his big test went, you better believe weâre going to include a corresponding emoji to go along with our inquiry. A boring text that could simply read, âhey, how did your test go?â becomes 10 times more interesting when you add a book emoji, a pencil emoji and a few happy faces just to spice things up, and your simple âwanna get drinks later?â is so much more exciting and intriguing when you follow it with a few martini emojis and a classic winky face.
âI use emojis because they make my texts sound more exciting,â says Hannah, a junior at the University of Washington. âEmojis just make texts so much less serious and [more] fun. I would never use them when texting an employer or someone I worked with professionally, but when Iâm texting my friends or a guy I like, I always throw one in there.â
Itâs a girlâs worst nightmare when she starts texting a new guy and the dreaded green text message appears. No iMessage means no iPhone, which in turn means no emojis â how is she supposed to let him know sheâs crying from laughter at his last joke if she canât use the crying-from-laughter emoticon?!
Taylor, a junior at the University of San Diego, is also a big fan of emoji use in her texts. âI have my favorite emojis that are always my go-tos whenever Iâm texting,â she says. âI kind of just use them without even realizing it! When Iâm texting someone and just want to have a fun, lighthearted conversation, theyâre a good way to lighten the mood. I use the heart-eyes emoji way more than humanly necessary.â
With a plethora of emojis at our constant disposal, we can find a fitting one for any text message we send, which may be why we constantly overuse them. No matter who sheâs talking to or what the situation is, a girl will include emojis, and if you donât like it, youâve got a âwhatever girlâ emoji coming your way.
Guys
While guys may not often feel the overwhelming urge to add endless amounts of heart emojis to their text messages, that doesnât mean they avoid them at all costs.
âI donât really get the point of emojis,â says Tyler, a sophomore at the University of Washington. âTo be honest, I usually only use them if Iâm texting a girl I like and she keeps using them.â
Sometimes youâll find that overzealous guy friend who shares your mutual love for emoji-filled text conversations, but more often than not, you wonât get more than a classic smiley face out of a guy unless heâs totally into you. Emojis just arenât a instrumental part of a guyâs texting routine; theyâre only reserved for the most special of occasions.
âI kind of feel like emojis are a little emasculating, and I know a lot of my guy friends feel the same way,â Tyler says. âI think emojis are more of a girl thing, so if a guy constantly uses them it might make him seem a little feminine.â
Safe to say if that guy you like sends a kissing face emoji your way, youâre definitely on the fast track to love⊠or at least a casual froyo date.
Abbreviations
Guys âdefâ arenât as dialed into texting lingo as we girls are, and sometimes that can just be a really big âprob.â
Girls
As determined, young collegiettes, we live pretty busy lives. With our club meetings, class projects, internships and homework, we need to make the most of our time, which is why we totes abbrev everything we text (plus it makes us sound SO much cuter).
âFabulousâ gets shortened to âfabâ, âoh my Godâ becomes âOMG,â âbe right backâ turns into âBRBâ and âilyâ becomes the new way to let your BFF know that you so totally love her. Itâs like a secret texting language that only girls can truly understand and appreciate.
âAbbreviating words when Iâm texting has become so second nature to me,â Hannah says. âI especially notice it when Iâm texting another girl friend, because we feed off of each other. I personally think abbreviating words is pretty fun, but whenever I accidentally text my boyfriend using typical girl abbreviations, he always tells me to stop because he thinks itâs annoying!â
When your best friend texts you to tell you that sheâs âsupes jellyâ (super jealous) about the fact that your new boyfriend is âtotes adorbsâ (totally adorable), you know exactly what sheâs saying. Show that same text to a guy, and he may ask why you mentioned jam and handbags in the same sentence.
Itâs only a matter of time before they make a Rosetta Stone program for girl-texting lingo.
Guys
There are very few guys out there who would text their friends to tell them that their spring break trip was âso fabâ or follow up an exciting text with, âOMG no way!â
âAgain, guys think that abbreviating words while texting is also kind of emasculating,â Tyler says. âItâs not very manly to say âOMGâ in a text message, so I think thatâs why most guys choose to not use phrases like that when theyâre texting.â
Guys like to keep their texts short, simple and to the point without all that complicated texting lingo to accompany it. Boys are, more or less, completely oblivious to the many abbreviations we girls use on the daily, and frankly, they donât really understand them.
âSometimes I donât even understand some of the stuff my girlfriend texts me,â says Ryan, a sophomore at Oklahoma State University. âGirls have so many weird abbreviations they use I canât even keep up. I feel like they make up a new one every day.â
How guys can write out the word âperfectâ without feeling the overwhelming urge to abbreviate it to âperfâ is a mystery to us all.
Response Time
Itâs been three hours, and the guy youâre flirt-texting still hasnât responded. What gives?
Girls
We ladies have no problem with making sure our text message responses are prompt and timely. Sure, we may spend a few minutes screenshotting a text, sending it to our friends and asking for their advice on what would be the best, flirtiest, most nonchalant way to respond, but we never leave a guy hanging for hours on end.
Our valiant effort to be prompt isnât always reciprocated, however, and our male texting partnerâs failure to text us back in a timely manner leaves us with a plethora of time to sit and think up some pretty crazy reasons why the guy isnât texting us back.
âI always respond to peopleâs text messages pretty much right when I receive them, so I never understand why it sometimes takes guys hours before they respond,â Taylor says. âI understand that sometimes people forget or theyâre in the middle of something, but you would think it wouldnât take them hours and hours to respond!â
Unless he suddenly fell into a coma or spontaneously fell off a cliff, thereâs no excuse for him to not text you back immediately, right?
Guys
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Letâs face it, guys arenât always the best at immediate text responses, and no, itâs not because theyâre playing hard to get.
âSometimes I really just forget to respond to a text or get distracted after I open the message,â Tyler says. âI never intentionally take a long time to text someone back; sometimes I just donât remember to for a few hours.â
Guys donât seem to feel the same urgent need to promptly respond a text message, which is exactly why it often takes them so long to respond to our carefully crafted, emojied-to-perfection texts.
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We may not have the same texting habits, but thatâs okay! Weâll leave the guys to do their own thing while we sit back and see how many cat emojis we can fit into one conversation.