Who should text first? The age-old question.

Dear reader,

On a normal day like this, I would write an article and the opening would be something to do with the day being a Friday. I woke up feeling like the day was a Monday or something of the sort. The lack of activity on the busy area I overlook when I am out for a stretch on a normal midday makes it even more confusing as it is highly suggestive of today being a Sunday. Anyway. We are here and we can only wonder what day it is. I do not believe that we should name days based only on what the previous ones were, by the way.

It feels good to be back to writing ways. I have always told people who take interest in the person behind the Friday articles that writing is my way of venting out my anger and frustrations and that it is only through this way that I minimize the fallout and collateral damage. I sometimes feel what I would call a blend of pride and guilt when people tell me they have seen themselves in my articles when in essence I was just writing about myself the whole way. It gives me the sense that I have stepped on the raw nerves I strive to avoid but at the same time makes me realize that I am not alone in the darkness of my suffering.

Enough of the self-pity.

Coming back to writing ways was always going to be a difficult thing for me. Even in the thick of political and social media drama the choice of an article was going to be a difficult one for me. At the end of the day, I chose to write something about what most people in relationships are struggling with. The question?

“Who should text the other first?”

While I may agree with the one who is whining that this is a very stupid topic, I must say that this might be important for a few after all. By the time we get to the end of the second A4 page we should be able to determine the criteria by which we should choose who should text the other first in a relationship. Let’s break the ground.

I must state here that I do not have that much of relationship experience. My stint with these things lasted a little over two years and I have since taken a two year break from them. Not much of CV for someone who should be trying to answer this complex question, if you think about it but such a time provided a good opportunity to observe and experience some stuff.

The genesis and lifespan of a 21^st century relationship has evolved to an extent that most of the stages pass by in an accelerated. People meet and they exchange numbers. Before you know it, they get to be all over each other, texting through the night. In a matter of days, some premature relationship is born. The texting dynamics then keep getting poorer until the relationship dies a natural death. Needless to say, relationships are still good and everybody needs one. Well. Almost everyone (we will explain that in another article, koma enanu mukhoza kupitiriza kudya kanundu ndi kudumpha ma sipikala a Jai Banda).

On the texting dynamics, most of these relationships which involve semi-independent young humans are sustained by online communication and Whatsapp becomes vital in the communication because with time people have become too lazy to call. For some reason, the owner of this application decided that it was good for people to see when last the person on the other end of the line was online should they not be active in the moment. That is a good feature and it helps create realistic expectations in terms of response times. On the other hand, the same good feature has become a burden to some people in love as it creates questions. Imagine waking up a little after sunrise and not finding a good morning bae (or whatever you call each other) text from your spouse who was last seen online at 5:30. Hurts, right? You will not admit but we both know that this has been an issue mu chibwenzi chanucho. Even when there is no “last seen” involved, there have always been some issues that have restrained people from being the first texter in relationships in which spouses once put their school or career on the line because of spending too much time online.

There are several determinants of who texts first from my observations and experience. The first one of these (rather stupidly) is about who was the last to text. Some people just feel like if theirs was the last text on the chat, the other has to ignite the next chat with the first text. Of course it sounds logical, sometimes. The second? Whoever comes online first after the last chat. And then there is this thing of agreement. “Ukamaliza kupanga zakozo holla at me on Whatsapp.” Good stuff.

All those scenarios and things sound pretty simple but they have been sources of trouble for young relationships. People have had serious headaches on why their loved ones did not text them despite having been online at some point or despite them being the last to text and this has led to the collapse of some relationships. At some point, a game of egos has led people into thinking that they were not going to start a chat if bae was not going to.

I have swam a good number of miles in these waters and over years I have realized that these small internal barriers to communication have catastrophic effects on human interaction. .. and that these games are pretty unnecessary for someone who is serious about communication, in a relationship or otherwise. In my view, anyone who is really serious about interaction and the building of meaningful interpersonal relationships should not take sending the first text as a burden. It is just “Hi!”, anyway. The unnecessary pride we harbor and allow to flourish make the punching of these four keystrokes look like a herculean effort and at the end of the day we end of losing people of great value in our lives because we wanted to nourish our pride.

Having stated all that, I think we can go back to answering the question that troubles many every morning and evening (at the peak texting hours). Who should be the one to text first? Is it the one who last uploaded a funny picture for a status update? While that may be the nearest answer in the contexts of our pride hearts, the answer to all this lies in how much value we put to communication and whoever is on the receiving end of the communication. When we put so much value on the person on the other end, texting becomes easy regardless of the other factors that may be at play.

From the experience corner, I can say that such egos have cost me some potentially profitable relationships. From the observation corner, most relationships are suffering because of such trivial issues. I will not bring in suggestions or action points into this. All I will say is that if you are really serious about communication or your relationships, you will not need much contemplation to send the first text. For the rest of you, continue to act the way you act. Your relationship will take the natural course and eventually you won’t be needing to crack your head on whether you should send the first text, anyway.

Woza Friyay!