Real Men Don't Text

Real Men Don’t Text by Michael and Ruthie Dean

The Deans bring advise to a generation of tech-savvy daters wondering how to navigate the virtual waters to marriage. Attempting to date a serial texter requires a translator. Michael and Ruthie brought a crash course in understanding what a texter means when they say “are you busy tonight?”

I found Real Men Don’t Text gave a lot of practical advice. If the guy doesn’t have the motivation to call you, you shouldn’t find the motivation to get dolled up for a date. If the guy texts you like he texts his friends, he probably doesn’t intend on you being anything other than a friend. You can’t sit around and wait for the next text, you need to live life. If the text doesn’t come, move on.

What I felt Real Men Don’t Text failed to take into consideration is we are far down the technological road. We can no longer see the point we started from in the rearview mirror. I’m probably a few years older than the intended demographic for this book and many of my friends wouldn’t be “friends” if we followed the logic in Real Men Don’t Text. We’ve reached the point of a generation not reaching for the phone to make a call first, but reaching to text. We are tweeting our devotion to our significant others. Facebook statuses are proclaiming our love. One-on-one communication is dying.

I love the idea behind going “old school” and speaking to each other. There are many phone conversations in my past with wonderful friends and boyfriends which lasted multiple hours. Many time I think “I miss the sound of so-and-so’s voice.” The reality is we need to accept the evolution of today’s advancement and train our children to respect themselves and others. Text messages don’t have to be booty calls. They are simply what Facebook is to MySpace.