Here's the deal guys, I'm terrible at texting, and I think it negatively impacts my relationships. It is without a doubt my biggest source of anxiety.

What ends up happening is I usually just use texting to set up dates and keep it at that. Then what ends up happening is because I only use texts to set up dates, there is no natural back and forth of text conversations. Then I start to feel insecure because at root I want her to text me too sometimes. Then I start to pull back to see if she'll text me anything and after that if she never texts me then I'll start to think shes losing interest in me, so I'll start talking to other girls. This is a viscous cycle, and I really think at root its because I've adopted this mindset that "You should only use texting to set up dates".

Then there are a lot of times where if I don't text and wait 4+ days to set up the next date, that I never get a response back - even after great dates, which makes me feel like all the momentum was lost. If I break the cycle to test the waters and text her something, its usually not a very enthusiastic conversation which sometimes makes me feel unwanted. I guess I'm assuming that if a girl was into you she'd be starting text conversations with you too?

Ultimately, I need help. I need help probably with developing a better mindset about texting. But I'd also like to hear from you guys, or anyone in particular who feels confident in their text game, just to see what success looks like. How do your conversations normally flow? Are you the one who always initiates? What are you usually talking about? What do you open with? How do you gauge the success of your text game? Did you ever have a pivotal learning experience with it?

I think this would be beneficial for everyone because I don't see any guides on texting, and honestly I feel the "no texting except to make dates" idea is for people 40+ who didn't grow up with texting, and is not relevant to anyone younger. Any comments are appreciated.