I don’t remember where I was when texting arrived. It crept up on me from behind, and not in a good way.

All of a sudden EVERYONE was at it.  Yes OK, it may be ‘progress’ but really, I think it’s a backward step.

Why is it more normal to text, than to actually SPEAK to the person you want to communicate with.

Am I a textaphobe?  Oh no I’m up to speed me!  Yes, my fingers can talk the talk as well as anyone else.

But way back in the day, that clever chap Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, so we could speak to another person, immediately, without waiting for a letter or a telegram, bearing good, or bad news. EUREKA!  Because of him, we just picked up the phone and TALKED.

But all good things come to an end and we now have the cutting edge of text messaging at our  fingertips. Previously, you might have enjoyed a verbal invitation for a hot date and had the pleasure of hearing the sexy voice of your one and only. Now, you get a piercing text alert, only to read ‘ wud b g8 2 c u 2nite, spk 2 u l8ter’.

Well that’s not going to ‘send’ you all giddy is it!

I think women, especially, get a very raw deal in the texting department.  When sending a text to their ‘man of the moment’ they usually use up all of their allotted digits.  Men, on the other hand, usually use the least digits possible to get their message across.

Imagine the morning after the passionate night before. Women are prone to reliving it all, and may wonder if ‘he’ is still basking in the same afterglow as she is. (Unlikely)

So she sends a 160 digit loving missive about how great it had all been. If she’s lucky enough to get any response at all, ‘yeah woz gud’ could just tip her over the edge of texting reason.

Mobile phones seem to have become the adult version of a security blanket. They have to be within touching distance or the owner feels a bit scared.  Scared of missing something that is.

No matter where you look these days, there will be someone clutching their phone, texting madly. Huddled in doorways’ the smokers have now been joined by a new band of brothers all firing up their small and slinky weapons of mass communication.

Of course one thing a phone call and text message do have in common is that sometimes both of them are a long time coming so to speak.

You know how it is, you are all loved up, waiting for a missive from the object of your desire, but you have to keep your phone on silent. Perhaps you are at work, or worse still, a funeral.

So you tuck your mobile snugly in your bra or knickers.  After all if there are any vibrations heading your way, especially in your lady bits, you sure as hell don’t want to miss them.

Then, if he’s in ‘chatty’ mode you have to plead early onset incontinence and visit the loo several times so you can reply in secret.

Gone are the days when numerous trips to the ladies could indicate doing constructive things with white powder and a credit card. The fashionable addiction now is TEXTING.

Even the Priory Clinic are running therapy sessions, I kid you not.

But even if it is quick, and convenient, texting is still fraught with issues for lots of people.

We’ve all got a relative or friend who takes FOREVER to reply to the simplest of texts, or who just ignores them altogether.

Isn’t it so annoying, when you need a quick response to something, as in, right NOW, and you know damn well the other person is definitely not handcuffed to a chair in a darkened room rocking some earplugs.  Yes, they can see, and hear that they have received a text from you, but it’s totally out of your hands, when, or if they will answer.

Then to add insult to injury, eventually you may get a response which begins ‘soz woz busy b4….

Busy BUSY?  What on earth were you so busy doing that it took you THIS long to bloody well answer. Honestly, I’ve seen my nearest and dearest respond to a text almost before they’ve received it, yet sometimes I wait DAYS for a reply if I get one at all! 

I’m ancient enough to remember the smelly phone box at the bottom of my road, where I used to go every Sunday evening with my Mum so we could make our weekly phone call to my Gran.  The A and B button, the frantic ‘Goodbyes’ trying to beat the pips.

Somehow, no matter how many kisses it has at the end, a text from MY Grandchildren, just isn’t the same as hearing their voices.

KWIM!?

Mature Gentleman, look away now.    

I know I have a low boredom threshold, and my attention wanders pretty damn quick if I’m not fully engaged with either a person, film, or even a book.

But when it comes to a mature man trying to entertain me with what he thinks is an interesting tale, sometimes I struggle to disguise my FFS shut up face.

Some people would have us believe that this, low boredom threshold thing, is the sign of an intelligent mind, but in my case, I can assure you it’s just a sign that someone is taking far too long to tell me a story!

Yep, I’m just plain bloody bored.

I honestly do try, but today was a prime example of something that happens to me quite regularly.  Is it them, or is it me I ask myself.  But I’ve a better idea.  You decide!

I’ve been away for a week to Spain, on my holibobs. I’ve eaten some nice food, seen some nice places, and met some nice people.

In fact it’s all be SO ‘nice’ that I have a story or two of my own to impart to anyone who is willing to listen.

But today was clearly not my turn for storytelling.

One of my very mature ‘gentlemen friends’ called in to collect some duty free cigarettes I’d got for him. And when I say ‘friend’ he is just that.

A lovely, very rotund chap, who is outrageously rude and opinionated, but hilariously funny at the same time.  He’s usually great company.

But today, the boring bug had bitten him good and proper.

He bustled in with a big bear hug and peck on the cheek for me, plonked himself down rather heavily in a chair not made for girth.

Being polite, I got in first, and asked him how he was, and what he’d been up to.   BIG mistake!

Now I can tell you what he’d been up to in these few words.

His friend, a farmer, got a puncture on his truck but he had no spare tyre, so he was going off to get it repaired for him. Some modern vehicles don’t come with a spare these days, just a repair kit, which isn’t much good if it’s a 4×4 and you regularly drive over fields and ditches like he does.  What a daft idea these repair kits are for commercial vehicles, surely they should come with a spare tyre.  END OF.

Only his version went on, and on and on.  He told me about the inner workings of an inner tube, the size of the wheel, the make of the vehicle, and went into great detail about a series of letters he had previously exchanged with the MD of the car manufacturer, regarding the aforementioned omission of a spare tyre.   

He quoted parts of each letter, quoted part of the current licencing law for commercial vehicles and didn’t even stop when I began to pick my nails and do that thing we ladies do when we are not in the least bit interested, and start saying, ‘yeah’ in a….’ hurry up and shut up’ kind of way.

For Fuck Sake……….seriously, why do men do this.  Take FOREVER to tell a story which holds NO interest whatsoever for a female listener.

Don’t they realise, it’s so damn boring and eventually we just zone out.  They are so busy droning on and on, they can’t even pick up the signals that it’s time to shut up.

And not to mention their ability to hark back to something that happened 4 decades ago, making it sound like it happened last week.

What is that all about.  Talk about living in the past.

Women are good at just getting the pertinent facts of a story across aren’t they.  We can tell it exactly how it is in a few sentences, and move on swiftly to the next bit of juicy gossip.

We live in the moment; we are best at banter and bare facts.   

WE DON’T CARE if whatever, happened on a Monday at 7, or Thursday at 10.  We just want to know WHAT happened!

BUT ‘mature’ men seem to have to be SO precise about the facts of any incident.  As if a minor wrong detail will affect the bloody outcome of the story.

Chaps, do us women a favour,  just cut to the chase, the quicker the better.

Eventually this morning, I had no alternative, but to stand up, look at the clock and squeeze in ‘it’s been lovely to see you’ (now bugger off), before he told me the colour of the vehicle and what size underpants the owner wore.

Thankfully, getting the hint, he heaved himself out of the chair, picked up his Silk Cut Purple and went happily, if obliviously on his way.

My ‘gentleman friend’ is intelligent, well versed, bright and amusing in general conversation, but OMG, get him onto telling a story, and you end up hearing the ins and outs of a magpies arse………

Did he ask anything about my holiday. NO.

Did I get the chance to tell him anything about my holiday. NO.

Does the same thing happen to you?   Tell me………..

Otherwise I shall think I’m just a really rubbish ‘lady friend’ who is only interested in the sound of her own voice!