Recently while I was hanging out with three of my girlfriends, I drafted a text message to send to a guy. It was the type of text message that had to simultaneously say, “I’m cool but not conceited,” and “I’m both fun and funny.” You can imagine the pressure. 

After drafting the text message I did what any normal girl would do: I passed it around one-by-one so that my friends could read it and help me weigh in on whether or not I should send it. The text message went through a series of rigorous examinations to make sure it was send-worthy. We did focus groups on whether or not it was funny enough. We held caucuses on whether or not I came off too strong in the text. We made graphs and charts to determine if I’d waited the necessary amount of time since he texted me last.