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"It&amp;amp;#8217;s no secret that texting has become the dominant form of communication for pretty much anyone under 50, a fact that is especially true for men and women when they begin dating. For many reasons, this can be a good thing. The ability to edit words before you actually say them is definitely a feather in your romantic cap. There is, however, a potentially major downside to the texting/Gchat/Facebook messaging world we live in: the fact that men and women don&amp;amp;#8217;t text the same way. Tell me you haven&amp;amp;#8217;t experienced this: You pour your heart and soul into a text full of exclamation points, emojis, and ALL CAPS in order to perfectly communicate not just what you want to say but how you feel about saying it and how you feel about the guy your saying it to, only to have him reply with, &amp;amp;#8220;sure,&amp;amp;#8221; or &amp;amp;#8220;yep.&amp;amp;#8221; It&amp;amp;#8217;s galling, I know, mainly because I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been yelled at repeatedly for doing exactly that. And I also know that I&amp;amp;#8217;m not alone when it comes to monosyllabic-ly grunting my way through a text conversation, because most of my buddies get called out for doing it too. We&amp;amp;#8217;ve compared notes and we&amp;amp;#8217;re (mostly) aware of the situation. So why do we continue to be so bad at text-messaging? Well, here&amp;amp;#8217;s one reason. Call it the Steve McQueen effect. When it comes to interacting with other humans on this earth, man or woman, there is a part deep in the recesses of our lizard brain that asks: What would Steve McQueen do? Would Steve McQueen, the King of Cool, freshly dismounted from his motorcycle, reply to a text message with a heart and a smiling winky-face emoji? No, he wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t. Not ever. You see the issue here is that, while we are just as giddy and nervous to talk to a woman as that woman is to talk to us, that giddiness doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t replace our deep and abiding need to feel manly. And emojis and exclamation points just don&amp;amp;#8217;t feel manly. Subconsciously, using them makes us feel as if we&amp;amp;#8217;ve adopted the voice of a teenage girl. And so, rather than display any accidental overdose of vulnerability, we avoid it altogether, hence the &amp;amp;#8220;yep.&amp;amp;#8221; The cruel irony is that we spend just as much time as you do, maybe more for all I know, dissecting every nuance of a text message in order to find any hidden meaning behind it. I know, we&amp;amp;#8217;re difficult&amp;amp;mdash;again, my apologies. So the question is, how do you overcome this massive communication obstacle? Well, I suppose one way to do it is just to ignore the whole thing, accept us for the cavemen that we are, and hope that the guy you like can at least string a few emotionally laden words together in person. Or, you can wait a date or two and then just tell him, kindly, that his texts come off a little antiseptic. That one worked on me. It&amp;amp;#8217;s silly I know, but once I&amp;amp;#8217;m confident that the woman on the other end of the line won&amp;amp;#8217;t be thinking &amp;amp;#8220;wow, he texts like a teenage girl,&amp;amp;#8221; I&amp;amp;#8217;m more than willing to pepper in a few exclamation marks and maybe even the occasional ALL CAPS. Emojis are still tough, but...one day at a time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/smitten/2014/08/confusing-text-guys-texting-messages>