Texting that destroys people

I am not a psychologist. I am not a therapist.

But I am a girl with three roommates who are currently going off the deep end.

Let me start out by saying this: texting ruins lives. As a non-texter or an anti-texter, I wonder if college students will ever again be able to have a heart-to-heart conversation without using a keypad.

Is this really what our lives have amounted to? Claiming our devotional love for someone through the letters “ILU?”

Night after night, weekend after weekend, they wait. They wait by their Blackberry and their Motorola Razr for “Read Now. Read Later.”

They wait and wait until finally deciding: “Okay, fine, I will just text him.”

Not only are we constantly reminded how far down on their priority list we fall, but that they really care about us. Until, of course, at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, after leaving the bar when, once again, we are their last resort.

Is it immaturity or just cowardice that makes it okay for guys to type and send “Goodnight, baby!” or “Miss you, honey!” rather than to face their emotions and just make the effort to say it in person?

Not that we women are not to blame either.

Texting is an easy way to say what we have to say and be done with it.

Whether it be through a David Archuleta song or acronyms that take longer to understand than to just write out. Getting into full on arguments just to make up again is easier than ever.

Watching my girls crumble over not getting that meaningful text that they have been thriving on or the answer to the question that they asked three days ago is killing me.

And not to mention, I have to consider that these boys do not even take a second thought to their insignificant responses that my best friends will agonize over for days.

Perhaps I will never understand the person-to-phone-to-person relationship that has begun to define our generation.

Maybe I will finally see when my first text message arrives in my inbox or when I will be able to break a heart by a simple emoticon.

Other than that, I must wonder if this game of breakups and makeups will ever be via speech again.