Sitting next to her boyfriend, my daughter is silent. There is no need to speak. No need to verbally communicate. No need for the physical. No need to interact or feel the humanness of another person’s company. Yet, this is considered to be a date. He with his cell phone, she with hers.

No need because of the invention of the text message. With this tool, we no longer need to speak with one another. There is now no need for conversation. The positive side of this is any negative response, retort, reaction is merely viewed in words on a screen. The human knee jerk, gut wrenching hurt of a face to face rejection or disappointment is now absorbed through a wireless connection. It can’t hurt as much if you’re being texted someone’s just not into you as opposed to being told that face to face. You can always throw the cell phone out the window to demonstrate your feelings. If this were a face to face encounter with an actual being, the reaction of throwing said person out the window could be a problem.

Of course, the negative side to this is that happiness shown through a smile or ones eyes is no longer viewable. Joy in the face of a child or the passion seen in a lover’s eyes are words on a screen and acronyms at best. A good writer can craft passion and joy onto paper. I’m doubting there’s a lot of time spent developing text messages which is why there are whole statements abbreviated to “LOL” and “GAB” used to express these folks. It’s fast food for the texters.

And now I know why this current phenomenon has occurred. You see. I think children born after 1980 must have been born with their sensual sensations in their thumbs. It just feels good to text. Like sex or being in love, it’s an indescribable feeling. A heightened sensation. Just now it’s in our thumbs. You’ll see people light up a cigarette after having texted for a long period of time.

Which brings me to another thought. With the slow diminishment of speech and our ability to verbally express ourselves, will generations from now be mouthless? Will our mouths slowly disappear since they won’t be used anymore? Like the tail we humans had a gazillion years ago, maybe the mouth will disappear for lack of use. Lipstick companies will go out of business. People’s faces will change. There will no longer be any need for so much room on the face so heads will shrink in size. We’ll look like that shrunken head guy in Beetle Juice. Hopefully, our attitudes will be better.

And what will happen to our thumbs? Will they get bigger from so much use or smaller? Will we need the rest of our fingers? Or maybe all our digits will evolve into thumbs in case we wear one of the thumbs out from texting too much. How will we button shirts?

Since there’s no physical involvement anymore another question begs an answer. How will we procreate? Will there be female and male BlackBerry’s? Will the female BlackBerry carry the baby? Maybe that’s why phones vibrate. They’re signaling labor pains. When you hear a lot of static on a phone, could it be telling you it’s having morning sickness?

My daughter just texted me her boyfriend texted her he loves her.

Now if that doesn’t text romance, I don’t know what does?