Miss Manners: People don't say "Good Morning" when texting

[cereta]

Dear Miss Manners: When texting or emailing friends or clients, I often start off with “Good morning” or “How are you?” and end with “Have a great day.”

I always get short, right-to-the-point answers back, like “Okay,” and they don’t usually start with “Good morning” or end with “Have a good day.” So sometimes, I sarcastically reply “Good morning to me, too,” which I know people don’t like.

Am I too sensitive? I am old school and I just think people are being rude. They can say a little more than “Be there” or something like that. Maybe my expectations are too high and I won’t expect as much anymore.

Miss Manners: An excess of sensitivity would not be the diagnosis from Miss Manners after you admitted to the sarcastic barb. In the hope of preventing the next one, let her point out that different methods of communication carry with them different expectations about brevity.

While she agrees it would be unmannerly not to say hello to someone to whom you have just been introduced in a social setting, she would prefer to dispense with the prelude when warning someone about a fast-approaching car. Texts fall somewhere in between.

Comments

[cereta]

Here's the thing: I hate texting. Haaaaaate it. I hate typing with my thumbs, I hate having to switch between keyboards to use proper punctuation (and it hurts my English teacher SOUL not to), hate it. So I usually keep my texts as brief as possible. I'm not curt, but I don't usually include salutations. It's not about manners; it's about brevity.

[julian]

Like, I am perfectly happy, when I *can* type, to type out more elaborate greetings. But I can't type on a freakin' phone. And even autocorrect is clunky. So like, it's a *different style of communication*, LW. Cope.

Or, yes, Miss Manners, good answer.

[dissectionist]

I’m fine with typing on a phone but I generally don’t use small-talk niceties because I find them inefficient. When someone is opening a conversation about something else with “how are you?” they aren’t actually asking how I am; they’re initiating a canned call-and-answer where I’m expected to give a meaningless affirmative regardless of how I actually feel. It’s simply a waste of time to me. Get right to the point of what you want to ask or tell me, I’ll get right to the point of what I need to give you in response, and we can both move on with our days.

[green_grrl]

I don’t like this phrase in general, but she is absolutely the person for whom, “OK, Boomer,” was coined.

[conuly]

An excess of sensitivity would not be the diagnosis from Miss Manners after you admitted to the sarcastic barb.

Thank you, that's exactly the commentary this LW needs to hear. Unfortunately, they're not likely to understand it.

[oursin]

Texts are not the place for excessive redundant verbiage, I mutter, banging my cane and twitching my antimaccassar.

With emails, I find a chain of communication tends to segue from initial approach may include a certain formality to one/two word responses and this is the nature of the form.

[feast_of_regrets]

Miss Manners knocked this out of the park. An absolute delight of an answer.

[cora]

I used to love texting (I have since switched back to instant messenger as that's where a lot of my friends prefer to talk).

That being said: Texting is an asynchronous communication style. As such, it does not require openings ("Hello & good morning!") or closings ("Have a great day!"/"Bye!"/"Catch You Later!"). Nor does it require you to disclose "Have to go to work, I won't be able to respond for a while." If someone is expecting a real time response, that conversation should be a phone call. All other communication, it's assumed the other person may not respond back for a while due to prior engagements.

[pauraque]

I can't imagine why people would want to make their interactions with this person as brief as possible.

[sporky_rat]

If I'm texting someone I've never texted before, it'll run something like, 'Hi, this is Sporky, [rest of message]' but that's the only time I can think of using salutations in text.