I refuse to text message. I don’t care that it’s free with my phone.

I didn’t set out to be difficult.

I’m just slow to embrace technology. Well, it’s not like I really embrace it, I sort of give it an air hug. When nearly everyone else I know started texting, I still had a flip phone.

I still listen to CDs. I prefer my land line to my cell phone. I have a TV with rabbit ears that gets just ABC, QVC and a Spanish-language channel. Like Phil Hartman’s “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” from late 1980s Saturday Night Live, I’m frightened and confused by your new-fangled ways.

Besides being a technophobe, I’m a Type-A control freak. When I saw my friends and colleagues begin texting – when it was still a new thing – I noticed how, well, inconvenient it seemed. It appeared the texter was looking for an immediate response and the textee was obliged to comply.

As someone who needs a little time to process information and reply, the whole transaction seems unnecessarily instantaneous to me. If a text is from your boss, maybe reminding you that your TPS report didn’t come with the new fax cover sheet, that’s one thing. (Note the dated reference to “Office Space” and a nearly obsolete piece of technology. I really am anachronistic.) But if it’s just a “Hiya” from a friend you’ve recently seen, that seemed to require an instant response, too.

My initial impressions from the early texting era haven’t changed. Back then, texting seemed like an option. I didn’t realize that everyone I knew, including my septuagenarian parents, would eventually consider texting a part of daily life. Like setting your VCR to record a favorite program or reading the paper – What’s that? No one does either of those things anymore?

When I reluctantly traded my flip phone for a smartphone, I decided to protect myself from being assaulted with messages. That is not hyperbole. The onslaught of constant communication can feel, to this old soul, overwhelming.

I told the guy at the Verizon store I didn’t want texting on my phone.

“But, it’s free,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I still don’t want it.”

“But, it automatically comes with the phone.”

He stared at me like I was from the Paleolithic era.

Eventually, he had to ask his manager how to manually remove the texting feature.

I didn’t realize how unusual (most would say “out of touch”) I was until I mentioned to an editor a few years back that he could reach me by phone or email, but not text. His response: “Wow. You should write a story about that.”

And yet I’m reluctant to go public with what I think of as a preference but others regard as a peculiarity. Last week, my CharlotteFive editor, Katie Toussaint, emailed (since, you know, she can’t reach me the normal way) to say: “I hear you have a first-person account of why you don’t use text messages.” She offered me a forum to explain myself.

I’m not an island

Are you wondering if I’m homebound and have a dozen cats and a hoarding disorder? I realize that not texting makes me sound like the bride of Ted Kaczynski.

I do get messages. They come via email, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, on my home/office phone and on my cell phone. It’s not as if I’m living a solitary existence in a Unabomber-style cabin.

As a freelance writer, I’m in front of my computer screen nearly all day, every day. When I get a break from this screen, I don’t want to attach myself to another one. I do check email compulsively when I’m away from the office, but I rarely check when I’m out with friends. And since I feel compelled to check email, I don’t want to have to check something else.

Plus, I’m not fast on my phone’s tiny keyboard. It takes me an Ice Age to peck out an email.

In a time when there are so many (too many!) ways to contact someone, we should get a say in which ways we allow. Plenty of my friends aren’t on Facebook. Most don’t have Twitter accounts. Some never check voicemail. They’re entitled to use whatever channels they want – And to bypass the ones they don’t want.

I have that right, too. I just happen to have said “no” to a method that turns out to be everyone else’s default.

Recently, I ran into two old friends at a concert. As we were saying our goodbyes, we said we ought to get together again. Dean said, “I’ll put your number in my phone so I can text you.”

“I don’t text,” I said.

Her partner, Jim, quipped, “You really make it hard to love you, don’t you?”

That’s kind of what my family and friends have been saying for years.

I remind them that I’m actually easy to reach and generally responsive … and not just by carrier pigeon or smoke signals. An old-timey email or Facebook message will do just fine.

P.S. Once in a while, someone will actually offer kudos for my decision not to text. It makes me momentarily wonder if there could be a texting backlash one day. If there is, that would make me something I’ve never been – a trendsetter.

Photo: Poprock Photography

This story was originally published December 19, 2017 at 12:00 AM with the headline "I refuse to text message. I don’t care that it’s free with my phone.."