My winky-face

The winky-face. Some of you may know it as ;) and others may know it as ;-). It's a way to express emotion or intention via a text or email. However, what some of you may not know is that there are appropriate times to use winky-faces and there are inappropriate times. Let's go over a few examples start:

APPROPRIATE:

• Well, we can either go out to the theater, or watch a movie at my place. ;)
• Mind if I save your number in my phone? ;)

INAPPROPRIATE:

• I just had to put my dog down. He had cancer. ;)
• Someone just stepped on my new Nike sunglasses! ;)

Seems pretty black and white, right? I thought so too... until I met a girl whose nickname is now "winky-face."

Winky-face and I hit it off fairly well on our first date. Dinner was delish, conversation flowed, and plans were made to go out on a second date. We ended up meeting for breakfast and again, everything seemed to be progressing as normal.

She was going out of town the following week for work, so we made plans to reconnect when she returned. However, as fate allowed it, one evening opened up the night before she left so I asked if she would like to join me for dinner. Herein follows the rest of our conversation:

Winky-face: I can't do dinner. Just found out our final print job won't be done till 7, but if there's time I would like to see you before I go. Maybe coffee? 7:30? Starbucks? I have to get to my Mom's tonight so I'll only have 30 minutes or so... but I'd like to talk.
Me: Uh oh. "I'd like to talk" is never a good phrase to use over text message. Am I in trouble?!

I was half-joking, but after no response I followed up with...

Me: JK! 7:30 sounds great. See you there!
WF: Argh! I just got hit with a meeting I forgot about. There's no way I'm gonna make coffee and still get out of town tonight. I guess we'll have to wait.
Me: Why don't you give me a call when you're driving and we'll have our coffee date via our iPhones?
WF: Haha. To be honest, I hate phone dates. ;) I avoid them as much as possible and I'm gonna be wiped out which will make it worse. You can still enjoy Starbucks though! ;)

I decided to give her one last chance to respond to the "I'd like to talk." comment...

Me: Haha. No worries. Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about, though?
WF: Nothing that can't wait. ;) See you in a week!
Me: Fair enough. Have a great trip!

Okay. So take a look at the last message from Winky-face. "Nothing that can't wait. ;)" The ;) normally implies that whatever it is which "can't wait" is in fact something good, or so one would think.

The next day I ask if she made it down to her destination safely. Her response? "Yep."

Anyhoo, 7 days later she returns home and finally finds time to sit me down and have that talk which could wait. Turns out she didn't see a future and didn't like the fact that I tried to "push" her into talking with me on the phone in the car earlier. I apologized for attempting to offer up a solution to her perceived dilemma and tried to explain that I wasn't trying to push anything, but she wasn't hearing any of it.

My only advice to Ms. Winky-face is to seriously cut back on the ;)'s and for goodness sake, do not make a guy you've only known for 3 hours wait 7 days to hear from your mouth that you're not interested.

A simple text message will suffice. ;)