Wanting Consistent Texts When Dating Isn’t Irrational

You’re not needy.

It didn’t take me long when I began my post-divorce dating to establish some nonstandard requirements. I need someone who drinks (it’s not fun dating someone sober when I’m not an alcoholic but want to have stupid drunk sex occasionally). I need someone who lives within a driveable distance that doesn’t need the highway.

At the top requirements list is someone with kids. Without kids, those men wanted to talk on the phone for hours on end. I get it, over 45 is a generation that didn’t grow up on texting. But I don’t have time for that and even my friends know: unless you’re on fire, text that shit.

With kids, that gives someone time to text me between picking up from school and soccer practice. I’d rather do random texts all day while juggling our lives than allocate two hours for a fucking phone call. I can’t ignore my kids for hours while I hide in the garage to have a private call. I’ve realized that you can learn a lot more about someone while randomly texting for a day than a single phone call.

Single dads get it. All of them. There’s no expectation of lengthy calls or immediate texts back.

The caveat is that the guy has to text or else there’s little to no communication at all, which is the death of a relationship.

I’ve been dating Jeremy (cue the cartoon birds singing) for eight months. It’s been unnecessarily complicated because we don’t live close to each other (no highway driving though, per my requirements) and I know how to play the game with a man. If I push for a relationship too soon, he’ll get spooked and run.

Last month I was at the end of my rope not knowing our relationship status. I gave up attempts to flat out ask. My insecurity stemmed from his inconsistency with texting and hanging out.

Sometimes, Jeremy is all up in my nuts constantly wanting to hang out and responding immediately to texts. Other times, crickets. I knew he wasn’t banging other women but that doesn’t translate to wanting a committed relationship with me.

I would joke (to deflect my irritation) how bizarre it was when he took a full day to text me. Jeremy said that he understood because when I don’t reply within thirty minutes, per my typical pattern, he thinks I’m kidnapped with my hands tied.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I told him that his inconsistency with me despite being at predictable levels with everyone and everything else in his life wasn’t cool. In his drunken state, Jeremy went down a path of whether we could merge our lives and how we feel about each other. Bro, I just wanted you to text me on a normal cadence. I don’t need a proposal.

Demanding more texts makes me feel clingy. I’m not a teenager. I understand that his job doesn’t give him leeway to text incessantly and when he’s with his kids, I don’t expect gobs of communication. And yet, it drives me insane and fills me with anxiety.

For two weeks, Jeremy was in another country chaperoning his kid’s field trip in an area with no cell reception. For two weeks, I had no anxiety. There was no constant phone checking and it was fine.

He returned three days ago and my irritation over the lack of texting has returned. I give some slack, given that he went two weeks incommunicado and has a work email inbox that would make anyone cry. Still, going back to once-a-day texting makes my skin crawl.

And then I figured it out. It’s a love language thing.

Of the five love languages, mine is Acts of Service. Which is a no-brainer for my divorce, given that I was married to a man-child incapable of doing anything on his own, let alone for me. When Jeremy plays handyman around my house, it’s like he’s serenading me with flowers.

Texting is an act of service. That’s why it matters.

It takes effort to text, especially if you’re not in the mood or it’s not in your nature to do so. Short of hanging out together, there’s no substitute for it in a world where phone calls aren’t an option.

Texting makes me feel like the other person cares. They’re making the smallest, easiest action to show me they’re thinking of me. That person wants to engage with me on even the smallest level possible at that moment.

Not replying to my texts promptly is akin to my ex-husband leaving plastic wrappers on the floor or not doing the kids’ laundry. It puts the onus on me to take action first when I’m already irritated by his inaction.

It’s not the message in the text that matters. It’s the act of texting that matters. If a guy I’m dating texts me, “I’m at lunch with coworkers and just had the best sandwich of my life”, my emotional love bucket fills up.

That’s why I didn’t think twice when I didn’t receive messages while Jeremy was in another country; he physically couldn’t make it happen and I understood that.

Relative to other acts of service, this is the easiest one someone can do in a relationship. Pulling a phone out of a pocket to make a few thumb movements is a billion times easier than vacuuming or doing dishes.

This makes me realize I’m not clingy or needy for craving texts and getting anxious when they aren’t sent. It’s the opposite: I’ve set the bar for my love language so low, all I ask is ten seconds of thumb work.

I’m not demanding. I’m too easy.

With this newfound realization, I can articulate my needs in a way that doesn’t make me sound like an irrational teenager whining for incessant attention.

Texting is the bare minimum requirement to meet the Acts of Service love language.