cellphone courtesy

Sunday afternoon I received an unusual text.

Actually, I should preface this and say that I must be the only one in this world that doesn't have a texting plan. To put simply, I don't text. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I can't afford it. This has caused much frustration and vexation among several of my friends.

So, as I was saying, Sunday afternoon I received an unusual text from an unknown number. As a general rule, I do not give my number out to people I don't know. I don't have it posted too many places (or any places now) so the chances of an unknown person obtaining my number are slim.

This unusual text consisted of something like: "Hey brown sugar I want to be your CANDYMAN" or something to that effect. The actual message was much longer, but I unfortunately do not have it any more. I originally attributed it to a wrong number text. I am as far from "brown sugar" as one can get after all. As of today, I've received three more texts that say as follows: "Did you get my text?", "Hey are you gonna tex me?" [sic], and "Wish you wud tex me luv......"[sic].

The question I've been pondering for the past two days now is should I respond or should I ignore? I don't really want to respond because I want to pretend like his texts have disappeared into texting heaven--or hell (wherever lost texts go)--but I'm concerned that the longer I ignore him, the more texts he'll send. I don't want to pay for those texts since I never asked for them to begin with. Another question is, when will this guy quit? I may not be a texting mogul, but I was under the impression that texting is pretty much instantaneous and three days of silence after initial text would be a sign of possible rejection.

Which now leads me to my current complaint: cellphone courtesy. How difficult is it to tell a guy you don't want to give him your number? Granted, those really persistent guys can get pretty annoying, but really, tell them to beat it in any way that would work. Don't decide to give them a "fake" number. Some poor soul probably has that number. In fact, there are supposedly rejection hotline numbers. It's cruel, but it's better than someone else having to deal with your problem.