dating - text only

[julinico]

Hello everyone. I would like to discuss a topic about dating which is based on my own current personal dating experience.

I have been dating a guy for slightly more than a year now and things are going great. We are both in our late twenties and I'm renting my own place with a few friends and so does he. I travel often because of my job and I keep in touch with him almost entirely by telecommunication - MSN Messenger and gmail chat programs to be exact. When I am not overseas, we text each other on our mobile phones most of the week and only meet up once or twice a week for the movies, or parties with friends or to make love.

I notice that, apart from our weekend meetups which occur once or twice a week, our means of communication very often does not involve using our voices. Even when we meet, we barely have anything new to talk about simply because we have told each other practically everything via email or phone text. We talk dirty using our fingers way more than our voices, just typing away...

We either text on the phone or chat online. We never call each other during the week and the only reason for either of us to call each other is to say that we have just got out of the taxi or the train station or that whoever has arrived first at the place to meet will be waiting for the other. Or if there were some emergency during which we would definitely call out but other than that, we never ever call.

And I do like the fact that we don't meet each other so often because I actually enjoy this system that seems to work by the maxim: absence makes the heart fonder. And he hasn't complained about it. I like to imagine that we could have been working up some sexual tension by want of sight or sound of each other for several days, right before just pouncing on each other like there's no tomorrow when we meet. And time just flies at such supersonic speed these days it's already been slightly more than a year, basically building up sexual tension and keeping the interest going by text messages.

There are no problems, except for our bouts of mood swings and the ensuing silent treatment or 'giving each other space' armistice. We seem to have no limit to what topics to talk about with each other - especially on my part and he is really such a good encouraging listener who asks good questions too; and we can barely keep our mitts off of each other once we meet, our kisses are so intense, oh my god... which is to say, we are just crazy about each other.

But what interests me to start this discussion now is to find out whether there are others who are in a similar mode of dating - by text exchange, and not much phone calls?

Please share your stories!

[sundaymorningstaple]

Frankly, you sound like a pervert to me. Are you a reporter looking for an angle for your next column?

[Wind In My Hair]

Aw, SMS, give the girl a chance. You may be right but the post has enough detail to make it sound like it's a real person with a real concern.

Julinico, it's unusual for a first post to dive right into an issue the way yours does, which may explain SMS' reaction.

Text dating is very common these days. I like it myself as it allows you to keep in touch all through the day while getting on with other stuff. It's an enormously useful tool when both parties are working and it's hard to make time to be physically together as often as you'd like. Where I think problems start is when people PREFER texting to talking on the phone or face to face, given an option.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Something is still strange because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how she got a post here and still has a zero post count. At least she is local (I mean that only as a local post IP address, not her ethnicity or nationality). It might be on the level but to register and dive in like that still gives off a pong to me. I did give it the benefit of the doubt. That's why it's still here and not transferred to the rubbish forum. Let's see if she responds and how. Normally reporter types only plant seeds and then observe, foregoing any interaction themselves.......

[julinico]

Umm... gee... I guess I clearly need to be initiated into this newbie posting ritual or something like that. Heehee... I sounded like a perv..? My friends do call me a perv sometimes for my certain propensities...

Hi Wind in My Hair... I didn't realize it was unusual. I guess I'm for plain speaking. Whatever I have in mind I just lay it out there as it is. And I have a penchant for writing with rather punctilious style.

Sorry. maybe I should've introduced myself a bit more...?

Yes I'm local. I'm a flight stewardess. I love watching movies, I'm currently playing Mars Volta to death on my iPod, I love sparkling wine, soft porn and O Henry short stories.

And is there any isssue with 'reporter types'?

But yes, I've been thinking a lot about this SMS dating issue of late.

Is it supposed to be posted elsewhere?

[sundaymorningstaple]

No, it's fine here and accept my apologies. It's not often people on here walk to the edge of the volcano and just step off. Unless they're trolls or reporters. So, with that in mind........

I think carrying on a relationship via SMS is dangerous. (or with SMS for that matter! )

Okay. Now to clarify my statement. I've basically already walked a mile in those shoes (but without the instant updates that sms's provide but the same danger). In my day it was via letter instead. (a flat thin sheet of material that you can make marks on using an instrument called a pen or pencil) To make it move you have to place another little piece of paper on the front and then drop it into a box. By the next day it usually disappears unless it is Saturday or Sunday.

I worked for the better part of 20 years in the offshore oilfields (pre-gps) when there was only Inmarsat and bloody expensive and troublesome. Soooo, communication was normally via the written word - they used to call them letters . None of this had anything to do with a PC - which at that time ONLY meant Politically Correct. So I didn't even have that thing called eMail either.

IN the old days when you go offshore for two months at a time and come home for only 4 weeks, your only communication is the packet of letters that come in once a week. And the letters were pretty hot sometimes as well as the occasional piccie! Polorids in those days not SD cards or thumbdrives. and, just like your sexy hot sms's, our letters were just as good if not better (all kinds of scents can be contained in a letter). So really, what you are doing is old hat and nothing new at all, been happening for decades but with older technology.

Now, the problem. And believe me, there can be one. Take my case as an example. I worked offshore when I met my wife here in Singapore. We dated on again off again, remember I worked offshore two months and was back here for 4 weeks. Yeah, you do generate a lot of pent up desire and whatever and jump each other bones and shag your brains out while you are together. Then it's back offshore again. Called Feast or Famine I believe! You go from slow dancing to the hand jive overnight!

We did that for 8 years while going together, engagement, marriage and into our 7th year of marriage (2 kiddo's as well by that time). Then I quit working offshore! That's when the problems started. Married 7 years and we found out we didn't know each other all that well. It was pretty touch & go for about 6 months or so. The problem?

Our whole relationship was made up of 4 week increments inserted into our otherwise personal lives. We both had our own lives that were punctuated by a vacation of sorts for 4 weeks every quarter. Just long enough to wear out the equipment for a while leaving smoldering embers, but not long enough for the "newness" to wear off. All of a sudden we found the other in our way of the way we normally conducted our lives. We really didn't know each other at all. Like I said, it was rather uncomfortable as we had to try, after 7 years of marriage, to learn how to be married.

Many marriages don't stand the strain. And unless both parties are immune to the opposite sex, temptation is a very real danger as well. It doesn't just affect the one who is traveling either. All the sms's in the world only serve to heighten the desire and if it going to be a long trip, danger lurks. Same thing for the one sitting at home, once they go to the pub and down a few. Danger lurks just below the surface.

There's some grist for your mill........

[Wind In My Hair]

Wow, SMS. Long post, and very good reading as usual.

But maybe that's not a reason to not text date, just a reason to keep dating but never marry and live together.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Frankly WIMH, I'm not sure it matters much whether you are married or not. The 'being exclusive' with a long distance relationship would not really require a ring or a contract but just a commitment wouldn't it? Without the commitment, it just two strangers having a ONS whenever they get together. Or maybe Erica Jong's elusive Zipless ideal in Fear of Flying. The potential dangers don't disappear if you have a commitment or a marriage. Same dangers that break up marriages, often break up dating couples don't they? At least they did when I was single.

[julinico]

But maybe that's not a reason to not text date, just a reason to keep dating but never marry and live together.

That was the first thing that came to mind after I read SMS' post.

But it's not so much about communicating in instant text messaging as opposed to snail mail but rather, texting/chatting as opposed to calling. Maybe we could just choose to stay together and not having to have a discussion about this text dating phenomenon altogether.

Maybe moving in together will indeed be the next stage... And then marriage followed by the discovery that we don't know each other all that well, as in SMS' experience...? well, I hope not...

Anyways, yes ours is still a budding relationship and text dating like this really is convenient, even helpful. Like WIMH has previously said, it's a useful tool for keeping in touch while getting on with other stuff. And it really helps that we can never get enough of each other, given my frequent overseas travel.

But for my case, it's not as long as SMS. I still have about in total 2 weeks in Singapore and 2 weeks overseas. I just want to know if there are others who don't have to travel often who actually text instead of call as often as me and him.

It seems to me that this discussion might have also lead to another topic - would marriage and the fact that we see each other everyday make us want to just shoot each other in the end?

Which leads to the relevant topic of whether living by the maxim absence makes the heart fonder help prevent this cliched outcome of marriage? For example, I could just vanish in sight and sound for a week or so, traveling somewhere or just stay with parents for a while, but keep that all important updates by the modern technology that we have, never mind the want of titillating scents of sorts, so sexual tension builds up constantly and then upon my return, we shag like rabbits thus ensuring the all-important active sex life, and perhaps even surprising each other with anything new that we can come up with. And f*** temptation! Right...?

Wishful thinking? Nah, of course depending on our characters and willingness to work on it together. He's caring, sensitive, gets my jokes, doesn't open up easily, jealous, sexually possessive, moody and I love that he's such a challenge. And I'm cheery, expressive, horny, patient, masochist, and always thinking of new ways just to please him. I think it's absolutely workable.

Well, what do you think?

And yes, SMS is married 7< years, and I'm still just dating about a year... I get it. So you've seen and done more. But of course I'm going to take it as another person sharing his experience and observations with me and giving grist to my mill. I just hope things turn out a lot better for me and him!

And also, like SMS said it doesn't matter whether married or not. The point is, as I brought up myself, living together and whether or not there is enough commitment to overcome them potential dangers, whatever they may be - for my case, getting bored of each other .

Well actually, this point about temptation might lead to another topic I have in mind. An occassional swinging perhaps..?

[julinico]

Oh, SMS, yes yes, apologies accepted.

Haha, you actually said I sound like a pervert. I like you already!

Thanks for replying, WIMH and SMS. You both are like the very first 2 persons who talked to me in this forum...

[Wind In My Hair]

Gosh, you two are prolific today!

Yes, I agree it's not the marriage part, but the living together part that may prove challenging. I have no strong opinions on texting rather than calling. I've tried both ways and neither has resulted in marriage or living together so far.

Some information from a person more authoritative than me on the benefits of not living together, from the book Microtrends by Mark Penn who runs a polling company, on 'commuter couples' who are married but for work reasons live in different cities:

"Perhaps one reason why these marriages seem to be working is that people really have to appreciate each other to tolerate a commuter marriage - and yet the special feeling of being together, something easily lost in one-house marriages, is constantly renewed. In addition, they afford a degree of space and privacy that conventional marriages don't have - and that space may just be the pressure valve that gives these marriages an equal or better chance of success, in a world where divorce is the norm."

When I was eighteen I told my friends that when I married I want my own bedroom and they rolled on the floor laughing and said they hoped my husband agreed. Maybe that's why I'm still single - I just want my own room! Personal space is so important.

Texting gives more personal space than calling, which is one reason why I like it. I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be a big part of a relationship today.

[Wind In My Hair]

Thanks for replying, WIMH and SMS. You both are like the very first 2 persons who talked to me in this forum...

That is like so sweet, Jules. You make me feel like so old though, because I don't like normally talk this way. Guess I have to like get used to it if I want to like groove with the young hip people...

[julinico]

Oh no... I do not like like... please no... don't like think that I write like that like it's really not my style either like... don't.

[julinico]

Texting gives more personal space than calling, which is one reason why I like it. I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be a big part of a relationship today.

Oh yes, I couldn't agree more. That's precisely why I prefer texting. It's always because I don't want to be calling him at the wrong time when he's busy. And even if he's not busy I still prefer to text because I tend to say what I want to say better when I text. I have more time to think about what to say and I can always erase words and replace them with better words. And by texting, I tend to be more able to say something dirty or anything that is difficult or embarrassing to tell it to him in person.

And as I've mentioned many times, it really helps build up the sexual tension right before we pounce on one another like animals!

Well what do you know, text messaging is an important factor in building up sexual tension. Emoticons help too.

[sundaymorningstaple]

As the tone of these posts seem to be sexual in nature, what is going to happen when you continue these long distance relationships and also while in your "space" you decide to engage in a dalliance of a different flavour? Are you going to text your steady dating partner of the sideline? How long are you going to keep that up? 10 years, 20 years? Till the petals start to lose their firmness? What then? What happens when you run out of texting partners if at some point they decide they want a real relationship and not something as fleeting as just the occasional heat of passion. (If we keep it to that level, it proves a point that I've belabored for years - we are not much different than animals of the fields & jungles). What happens when a sideline dalliance leads to diseases (some will kill you other will just stay with you for life)? So many things to think about. Obviously I'm taking the devils advocate stance here so am using a worse case scenario. I just don't think the human psychic is naturally in favour of long distance relationships. It seems more artificial (like someone just trying to prove a point). Kinda like our foolishness back in the '60's with the free love generation that I grew up in. It was fun and idealistic at the time, but eventually we grew up. Those of us that survived that is.....

You made a comment that your absence cycle is only two weeks. That's fine, but can you guarantee that it will always be thus? 2 year from now? 5 years from now? What happens when the job you love bases you in a foreign country for a year or two? WIMH can you shed some practical light on the pros & cons here? I'm not all negative by the way. I think that the ability to have sms's and other forms of instant communication are great, but I still don't think you can create/base lasting relationships (other than platonic) with just those means and the occasional ONS.

Julinico, I've been married for a few more than 7 years now. I celebrated my silver wedding anniversary 2 months ago.

"Perhaps one reason why these marriages seem to be working is that people really have to appreciate each other to tolerate a commuter marriage - and yet the special feeling of being together, something easily lost in one-house marriages, is constantly renewed. In addition, they afford a degree of space and privacy that conventional marriages don't have - and that space may just be the pressure valve that gives these marriages an equal or better chance of success, in a world where divorce is the norm."

WIMH, the above quote, while a valid statement in of itself, doesn't state is how many of these commuter marriages were initially commuter marriages from the start (commuter dating turned into marriage). Maybe the book clarifies, but I haven't read it so don't know. Space, like sexual tension can be a double edged sword. I'd be interested in statistical data on the 'actual' success ratio of commuter marriages but that probably can't be found unless a long term study were done. Probably the only reason it appear to work is that those they see obviously are ongoing. What reason would there be to stay in that kind of relationship if it wasn't working. How many no longer exist. And, as there aren't any 'legal' documents to support commuter dating there cannot be any statistics either.

gotta run, must catch the bus to work........


........at work now and editing.....