Enter Kathryn
Brevity is a virtue. But in texting – the most abbreviated form of communication since smoke signals – too much brevity can cut your love communications short. Very short. Texting is an opportunity to connect with someone special, even when you’re apart. Don’t loose that opportunity!
Love is great. Being enchanted by someone, having the socks charmed right off you, is an amazing feeling. But expressing that feeling, sharing how you really feel with someone? That can be scary, complicated, or just plain hard – whether you’ve just met, or you’ve been together for a while.
Texting is often an arena of anguish for those unsure how – or whether – to express their affection. Do you respond with a heart? Send a smiley emoticon? A sexy emoticon? You don’t want to seem more into them than they are into you, but you don’t want them to think you don’t care at all. What are they going to think of a heart, anyways? Cute? Cheesy? It’s a quagmire! Better just send thumbs up again!
And if you’ve been in a relationship for awhile, a simple “K” is surely enough. They know you love them, right?
RIGHT?!
Erring on the side of caution with short, emotionless texts may feel safer and easier, but safe is synonymous with distant. Texting can make that distance feel a lot less, and sending honest texts helps us feel closer!
I get it. Playing it safe by keeping your feelings to yourself feels, well, safer! And we’ve all read advice saying that coming on too strong is a bad idea, claiming to tell us “the rules” of this game of love we’re playing, and assuring us that unless we play to win, we’re going to lose. Vulnerability and honesty don’t have a place in that kind of cut-throat, competitive pursuit.
What if that’s wrong?
There are great people out there who want to fall in love. They want to find someone special and truly connect.
When you’ve met someone special…
Maybe you’ve been on a few dates with one of these incredible people, and you’re feeling some serious feelings. Maybe you’re aching to share some of that motivational energy, to share the beautiful experience of finding someone else to be, well, beautiful; inside and out. Believe me, that’s something that’s best shared.
There are people who are out to play a game. There are many more who aren’t. There are people who will accept and love you for exactly who you are – they’ll love that weird text about Star Trek, or feel butterflies when they get emoticons from you. The best way to find those people, to truly connect with them, and to weed out the ones who just aren’t right for you is to let your freak flag fly. Be that weird and wonderful version of yourself the world doesn’t get to see enough. Be your honest to goodness, beautiful, fantastic self. Even though that’s scary.
Connecting with someone who’s willing to be scared with you, because they see all the special awesome things that make you so great, is worth it.
So when you feel compelled to text them just to say hi, or want to share a pic of the board game you and your wonderfully weird friends are playing, or tell them about a flower that made you think of them… do it! Life is too short to keep ourselves from the people who are right for us, to hold back on real love. Some people will be turned off, and that’s ok. The right ones will love it. And that’s what it’s all about.
When it’s a comfortable, long term love…
Just as it’s easy to exclude the kissy emoticon when we’re texting someone new in favor of not coming on too strong, it’s easy to skip the romance when texting a significant other. The motivation may be different, but the effect is the same: a wonderful opportunity to connect with this special person, even though you’re not physically together in that moment, has been lost.
If sending five hearts in a row just isn’t you, that’s ok! Connection isn’t about a one-size-fits-all, generic formula. It’s about taking advantage of an opportunity to be real. My boyfriend texts me with just two words when he’s feeling the love: “You’re nice.” That’s his way of being real, sharing his love, and building our connection. It feels amazing to receive those texts! And it helps us feel better.
Love is a verb. That means you have to do it, and keep doing it.
Romantic love is one of the most harrowing things any of us can ever do. It requires incredible bravery, and that means that it’s easy for us to cop out. To not quite go all the way, to hold back, to stay safe in our own world instead of opening that world to another.
But fortune favors the bold, in nothing more than love. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it takes a lot of effort and perseverance. And no, it doesn’t always work out the way we want. But the only way to “win” this game is to play it, with all your heart.
Texting is a fantastic opportunity to put us into practice. Whether you’ve met someone new or have been with someone for a while, love is something that’s done day by day, hour by hour, text message by text message.
Make the next text a good one!
From the heart,
Kathryn
P.S Make sure you visit her website and check out her books – I couldn’t put down Wild Land, it’s an incredible read!
