c/personality·Posted by u/aisha_r·1h ago

Why do I overthink every text I send, even a two-line reply?

There's a group chat about brunch this weekend. Someone asked if 11:30 at the diner on Elm works. I stared at it for twenty minutes. Draft one: Sounds good! Draft two: 11:30 is perfect, see you there. Draft three deleted the exclamation point because it felt like too much. Then I watched the typing indicator on someone else's name and felt like I'd already taken too long. It's not even a high-stakes conversation. It's eggs. I do this with my sister too. She texts a photo of her dog and I rewrite thanks he's cute until it sounds natural, which it never does after the third pass. I send the message, then I reread it from their side and decide I sounded cold, or eager, or like I was correcting the time. The diner doesn't care. My thumbs do. Is this just how some of us use phones, or did I train myself into it? What do you do when a two-line text starts feeling like a group project?

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