PORTLAND—Local man and self-confessed “introverted-ass” Will Dobbs is pleading for a real-life equivalent to the popular text and Instagram “like message” feature, chronically online sources confirmed.
“There are a lot of ways I can imagine it working,” Dobbs pondered as he threw his phone across the room after sending a message on Hinge. “Saying ‘liked a message’ out loud. Throwing up a heart symbol with your fingers and walking away. Reaching out and double tapping the other guy’s chest. God, I’d take anything to end some of these conversations where you’re just stuck making bad jokes with someone about the weather for 25 minutes at a time.”
“And when things are serious it’s so much easier than having to come up with a thought-out, engaging response,” Dobbs concluded while shakily lighting a cigarette after noticing that two minutes had passed without a response.
Dobbs’ longtime friend Owen Gage is frustrated by his lack of effort in the realm of basic communication.
“Dude’s been like this ever since I met him. Every time I send Will something meaningful–could be a passion project I’ve worked on, a shoutout on his birthday, asking to donate to my mom’s cancer fundraiser, anything–he responds the way I would to some meme I’ve already seen twenty times. Just wants to end the, uh, conversation before it even begins,” said Gage. “Like, just the other day, I asked him if he wanted to see this band he wouldn’t shut up about ‘cause my cousin is opening. He just heart-reacted to the message. Jesus, he didn’t even say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ You could give him a Nobel Prize and he’d just send a text saying ‘lol.’”
Veteran linguist Brock Davidson mourns the demise of actual conversations and the lost art of wrapping up a friend-to-friend exchange.
“Look, I’m not expecting Emily Post etiquette here,” Davidson clarified. “But could these people act a little more lifelike? Before you know it, we’ll be a society of vague charades,” said Davidson. “They all have a soapbox where they can create elaborate threads on political upheaval and social injustices and they can’t give their friends more than two words. Oh shit, just got a text from my wife. She’s going into labor. Shit. I’m just gonna ‘emphasize’ it, I guess.”
At press time, Dobbs, pulled over for speeding, was hypothesizing how he could say “message seen 12 hours ago” to the cop walking up to his window.