What’s worse than getting ghosted by a guy who perfectly fits your type, can occasionally strike up a fun banter and is super, super cute? Endless texting, reel spamming, and zero dates. It’s the Gen Z twist on a tragic pen-pal romance—minus the poetry, plus the Hinge shopping on the side.
Forgive my limited understanding of the talking stage but how long does it have to go on till you actually meet in person? Days, weeks, months. Who knows? It was fine when American poet Emily Dickinson did the whole letters-only thing with a judge called Otis Phillip Lord, and
British author Charlotte Bronte with her teacher Constantin Héger. They were separated by seas, wives and diphtheria. We can’t even save up our niche meme exchanges for the ever-brewing future tell-all. Unless the dating app pen pal is secretly married. In that case, congratulations, you have a bestseller in the making. Since married guys don’t give themselves away so easily, make sure you can afford a private detective as well.
The experts of just-texting-never-meeting always have a solid excuse at hand—hectic jobs, strict curfews, “timing issues” and whatnot. Some just keep calling in sick on planned dates like the employee who is quiet quitting but is too nervous to actually resign. On another level are the Sweet Bobbys who run the catfish business like it’s their full-time job. Even a thousand bad Bumble dates seem like a walk in the park if you compare the nine years Kirat Assi spent getting conned by a serial texter.
Aimless texting isn’t dating
A 21-year-old masters student carried on for two months with her 5-km-away Tinder match, waiting for his mother, sister, grandmother, and eventually his cat to get un-sick but never saw him in the flesh. Maybe it was a hard time for the family, maybe the dude was hiding his tail—she will never know. “But he never seen-zoned me,” was her reason to go on with it. Who says modern lovers are picky and petulant? We need so little to get hooked on.
My friend’s colleague, who is six years older than the student, was getting a little more to continue with the lack of IRL Facetime—lots of sweaty gym selfies and juicy gossip about her match’s friends. For all she knows, they were all imaginary characters ripped off from Parks and Recreation (2009). Once the supply of stories and “Hey, how was your day” messages started to dry up, she started entertaining herself by watching his preppy Bitmoji move from one location to another on the Snapchat map. The girlie can’t have her friends rant about smasher dashers: She always hits them with, “At least, you met him!”
Luckily, Reddit is packed with advice to avoid accidental pen pals. Get to know them, but don’t engage beyond three messages if they don’t ask you out. Always keep the long stories for in-person oversharing. Don’t let the good-morning, good-night texting routine set in before ‘your place or mine’ does. Do whatever but don’t, at any cost, start sharing reels before a real date. Of course, the most outlandish solution is confronting a serial texter about why he doesn’t plan a meeting but that’s too old-fashioned for most “chill girls”. After all, if he wanted to, he would.
So far, there’s no credible research to prove that aimless texting is dating. It might qualify as a ‘textuationship’ but let’s be real, it gets old fast. And no, it’s not “taking it slow” (as long as time is realistically measured). I should know because I briefly text-dated a turtle. Snappy with replies that were loaded with F1 references and lores, and all caught up with major-to-micro social media trends—a catch in theory but too slow to fix an ice cream date.
His excuse? “I am busy, I have too many weddings to attend, my boss spoiled my mood, yada, yada, yada.” But hey, he hardly went a day without texting me. In fact, he repeatedly told me how much he loved talking to me. As a designated anti-chill girl, I gently ghosted him. To him, I became Casper—polite and harmless. Now, he just lingers in my Instagram story views.
Views are personal.
Ms. Ratan Priya, I am a genuine well wisher of yours.
Please take my advice seriously. You need a psychologist at the earliest. Don’t delay as further delay may have deleterious effects on your mental health.
Please visit a psychologist. I am pretty sure she would refer you to a psychiatrist.