Here's how you can make text conversations less boring

Now, there are two types of people – those that absolutely love chats and those who would rather converse via phone calls. Personally, I fall in the category of the people who prefer text chats. I hate calls, they make me nervous and anxious. But, for chats to be interesting, it takes both parties. Stale conversations are such a mood kill for instance, so are repetitive everyday chats. What you wanna do is spruce things up. How can you do that? We have some tips.

1. Discuss interesting topics.

There’s a tone of interesting topics out there that you can use as conversation starters, depending of course on what you’re both interested in. For instance, if you’re both fans of Game of Thrones, you could send each other trailers, posters, funny relatable memes on the show…and so on so forth. You don’t even have to wait for one party to start the conversation, if you’re reading something and think that person will relate to it or love it, send them the link and tell them to check it out then wait for their reply and take it from there.

Woman texting(blackcitygirl) Texting habits that turn off men Pulse Live Kenya

2. Avoid super long messages.

I personally panic when I see an encyclopedia of a message. Jeez, just keep it short and sweet. If it’s too long, I’d rather receive a voice note instead or an email. No one has time to read through 400 words of a message.

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3. Reply on time.

If I send you something and you reply 24 hours later, best believe I am not responding to that message or rather I will respond when I feel like. Sure, you don’t have to reply immediately if you’re busy, but there’s messaging etiquette for crying out loud. Don’t wait too long to respond to the other person, especially if they were asking a question or talking about something exciting because to be honest, the conversation just won’t be the same for the other person 7 hours later. That ship already sailed.

4. Ask open ended questions.

This allows the conversation to keep going. In fact, questions are almost 60% of the engagement. They allow the person to talk more and shoot back questions and keep the conversation going. I should point out also that when you’re asked questions you should try and answer all of them. I hate it when I ask a set of three question, then the person only answers one and now I have to remind them of the two that they didn’t answer. It’s annoying.

Woman texting [Credit: RD] Relationship photo on texting [Credit: RD] Pulse Nigeria

5. Avoid one-liners and conversation enders.

If I ask you a question or compliment you or suggest something and you reply with one line, that to me is a dead conversation and I will not bother. It's sort of a clear indication that the other person has no interest in chatting and in that case, we should stop wasting each other’s time. For instance,

Person 1: Heeeey, how was the weekend? What did you get up to?

Person 2: Was home. You?

Person 1: Went out with the girls and had a blast, you know how Nairobi nights are, so hungered now hehe, thinking of K1 later. ..what's your Sunday plan?

Person 2: Ah Okay.

Erm yeah, don’t be like the person in the above replies!

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6. Take breaks.

Too much every day chats can get boring and monotonous. You don’t have to talk every day. Chat when you can and once in a while.

7. Personalize the chats.

Don’t be too formal. Use gifs, memes, send voice notes, a silly throwback photo, use abbreviations like LOL, emojis, stickers, video chat once in a while if they’re okay with it, send a selfie and tell them what you’re up to, make them miss you and want to see you soon. Of course, everything in moderation. Don't flood someone with emojis and gifs.

Emojis are a great way to personalize a chat BusinessInsider

8. Exit gracefully.

Obviously, you cannot chat 24 hours straight right? So, when you end the chat, do so in a polite manner. You will be busy talking to someone and the chat is so bomb and then boom, they’re off to sleep, without saying anything, or they just tell you a random G2G (Got to go). No, it doesn’t work like that. Exit gracefully. You can be like, be right back shortly I have to attend to something or simply let them know that you’re off to bed, instead of ghosting. That’s politer.