With Apologies to Some of You...

**I’d like to apologize to any of my friends who may be offended when reading this. While you may be guilty of this particularly annoying habit, I hold nothing against you personally.

The other night, I wasn’t feeling all that well, so I got into bed pretty early. After I had been asleep for about twenty minutes, my phone began chirping repeatedly, an indication that I had several new text messages awaiting me. While this is usually a source of pride, as it validates that there is at least one person somewhere out there who wants to tell me something, being awakened by “Notifier_ChiGong” was extremely agitating on a night when I was in dire need of an extra hour of sleep. I begrudgingly opened the phone to find a dinner invitation for the next night, certainly a kind gesture but one that could have waited until the morning. I thought nothing else of it, and went back to bed. End of story, right? No!

The next morning as my roommate and I were walking to the parking garage, he casually mentioned a late-night text he received from the same friend, piquing my interest. What did it contain, you may ask? Something racy, dare I say, Favre-esque? Not so. In fact it was the exact same dinner invitation I had received the night before, the same one I had assumed (based on the message’s content) was just for me. Call me sensitive, but I was offended, hurt, and angry. The dreaded group text had struck again, deceiving yet another hapless reader.
My problem with the group text has nothing to do with its core principle, which is to efficiently reach a number of people at the same time. It can be a great way to coordinate plans, or to at least inform others where you’re going. However, these messages should not be viewed as if the reader is having a one-on-one conversation with you. That’s just false- whoever sent it wanted you and twelve other people to see the same exact thing. There’s nothing personal about it. To create and send one of those messages that is made to look like it’s just for one person to a group, then, is plain disingenuous, a bare-faced ruse that leaves the recipient questioning every text they’ve ever received.

A group text sent under the guise of being a personal message offends me, and it should offend you too. Not only does it upset my sensibilities as a human being who hates the idea of being tricked, but it also lowers my opinion of the sender. He or she took the time to pick my name out of a list, it’s true, but he or she also took the time to craft a message with the direct intention of fooling me into thinking I was the lone recipient. This deliberate act of deception, while seemingly innocuous, strikes me as a decidedly lame and lazy attempt at friendship. Come on, if you really wanted to see me, you can’t take the time to send me an individual message? I’m not saying you can’t send out a group text, either. As I said before, I have no problem with it. But, as anyone involved in the Texas judicial system will tell you, it’s all about the execution. If you’re sending a message to a bunch of people, tell them. Starting a message with “Hey everyone,” “All,” or “What’s up people?” is a simple, yet effective way to avoid any kind of mix-up and potential for confusion and (in my case) hurt feelings. You’ll also notice that many openers, especially the aforementioned “All,” are an economical use of your 140 character limit. Use it and you get your message out while blatantly confusing and potentially annoying your friends. Everybody wins! And isn’t that really what friendship is all about?