One summer I worked the overnight shift. This meant I went into work at 10 p.m. and left around 8 a.m. Not only is it a taxing shift for the body and mind, it’s very isolating for a chatty social butterfly like me.

I became even more addicted to my cell phone.

I craved text messages and signs of life outside the mid-day walls of my apartment. I was very aware of my increased neediness and I told my friend Kim I was going into text message hiding for two days. I wasn’t going to send or receive, except in an emergency.

What did she do?

At 9 a.m. the next day the funny gal sent me a text message. “So. What are you up to?”

She knew how to tempt a chatty person with a slight addiction to the technology. She knows I so adore the little messages so simple and plain and yet so often full of emotion. They make me so happy.

Text messaging can be bad news for those navigating the dating world, though. What does it mean to text her the same night we go out? Do you wait for his “good morning?” Or do you contact him first?

Watch this scene from the 2009 film He’s Just Not That Into You.

“I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work so I called him at home and then he e-mailed me to my Blackberry and so I texted to his cell and then he e-mailed me to my home account and the whole thing just got out of control. And I miss the days where you had one phone number and one answering machine and that one answering machine housed one cassette tape and that one cassette tape either had a message from the guy or it didn’t. And now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”

Exhausting indeed.

I agree with Drew Barrymore’s character in the movie and I do often miss the days of merely looking at my answering machine to see if someone has called. This goes not only for guys or gals we want to date, but for job interviews, family, and work related people. My goodness I have to check my LinkedIn personal messages now too?

Regardless of my dislike of having “different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies,” I have a dependancy on text messaging. I’m not so far gone that I peek at my phone in the movie theater or keep it on the table during a dinner with family, but I love the little musical sound telling me “Sip and Go Girl, there’s a message.” It’s like a surprise waiting for me. Plus, if it’s someone I’m dying to hear from then all the better!