Lovers turn to text message to say it’s over - break up texting on the rise
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Lovers turn to text message to say it’s over
LONDON (Reuters) - U R dumped — one in seven say they have suffered the same fate as Britney Spears’ ex-husband and been told it’s all over via text message or email, a survey said Friday.
While hiding behind technology might appear a cowardly way of splitting up, it contrasts with the four percent who simply drop all communication with their lovers without notice.
“Most of us send emails and texts everyday, so it comes as no surprise they are now being used to ditch someone — however distasteful this is,” said Rob Barnes from moneysupermarket.com, which carried out the survey.
“The results show one per cent of the population would use a social networking site to dump a partner. It would be interesting to see how this changes as sites such as Facebook and MySpace become more apparent in our everyday lives.”
One of the most high-profile victims of dumping by text was Kevin Federline, who reportedly received news that pop singer Spears was filing for divorce while being filmed for a television show.
The survey said 15 percent of the 2,194 people questioned had been dumped by text or email, although a quarter of those in the most tech-savvy 18 to 24-year-old age group would choose the traditional method — a letter.
(Reporting by Michael Holden)
I’ve read many articles about breaking up, suggestions for doing it “right”, suggestions for healing your broken heart, and suggesting for letting someone go the best way. Most of these articles suggest doing it person, and not breaking up with someone through email, text, or on the phone. The reality of today’s busy lifestyle is that we may not have the time to meet up in person to break up. My recent break up occurred with her being an hour and a half away, and the conversation just led to us breaking up. So it was done on the phone. Not in person.
Sure I would of liked to do it in person, I would liked to have seen some emotion in her eyes, perhaps that would of made me feel better on some level. However I can totally see doing the break up through email or text, depending on the situation of the people involved. I’ve been in relationships where we texted more than talked the whole time, given that we are both super busy and often in locations that do not allow for easy talking on the phone, a break up text today with some dating scenarios would not be unusual. Heck, if you can fight and ague through text messages, why not end it that way?
Of course texts can be saved and shown to friends, and with part of the text conversation deleted, easily taken out of context, so I am careful what I text. There is unfortunately no way to unsend a text, and the delivery is quite fast these days. Just make sure you send it to the right person, and not your entire contact list. Also be prepared for your texts to be forwarded to your partners friends, if it gets around to the entire dating circle that you ended things with a text, it could make it more difficult to find a new lover and start dating again with the reputation of being a cold insensitive texter.
Another issue with text and email messages that drives me crazy is how they can be read in different ways by differnt people, certainly by now you have had some kind of misunderstanding through a written message, I know I have gotten a few confused phone calls where people read something I sent as a joke, seriously, and it could be the other way. Without facial expressions and inflection of voice, it is easy for people to misread texts and emails.
