This weekend a friend and I happened to overhear a conversation, just as one guy was saying to another “I’m sorry — I’m bad about reading texts.”
I told my friend, after we had walked on a bit, that I had no idea what the intent of that sentence was. “Is he saying that he spends too much time reading texts,” I asked, “or that he doesn’t read his texts often enough?”
My assumption would have been the first meaning, since a lot of people in my social circle find it annoying when people spend all their time reading texts — especially while an actual live human being is standing there RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.
As it happened my friend had heard the little bit of the conversation that came just a few seconds earlier. He explained that the other person had shown up late, and had told the first guy that he’d texted ahead to say he would be late. But the first guy hadn’t read the text, so he’d been standing there waiting.
So I had had it backwards.
My friend further explained — and here is the nice subtle part — that the guy’s “apology” for being bad at reading texts was actually a criticism. He was really saying that deciding it’s ok to be late, just because you know you can send a text, is not ok.
Hmm. Maybe it’s good to be bad about reading texts.