“Is he a bad texter, or is he over 35?”
Elizabeth Castaldi, a popular US creator, has sparked a viral discussion about the generation gap in texting when it comes to dating.
Castaldi, 27, recently went on a date with a 35-year-old man and she was baffled by the text he sent her the next day.
“Hey, had fun last night. Have a good day,” the man texted.
Then, in true Generation Z fashion, Castaldi took that private message, screenshotted it and posted it online, where it has amassed more than 500,000 views.
She added the caption: “I have to start dating people my own age. But I won’t.”
Castaldi’s confusion at the text message firmly divided the comment section.
Some thought she was being accurate and he was texting like a millennial, while others thought she was being unfair and the text she received wasn’t out of the ordinary.
“I’m confused how is this bad?” one person asked.
Castaldi replied that she didn’t have the “ick” by his formal text message, but his millennial texting style made her unable to tell if he wanted to see her again.
“Let’s be clear, I do not have the ick. I just can’t read him and I really, really want to go on a second date,” she wrote.
Someone else replied and said the problem with the 35-year-old’s text is that it was too sterile.
“It lacks any sense of enthusiasm, urgency, or intimacy. He could have written that to someone at work about a work function,” she explained.
A man replied to that woman’s theory and said her analysis of the message was immature.
“I just think it’s ridiculous that we’re sitting here [criticizing] this simple yet nice text. Would you prefer exclamation points and emojis? Like they’re grown adults,” he argued.
Lots of people were in favor of his formal texting style.
“If he texts like my dad, it is a green flag,” one claimed.
“This is the text you send when you’re not trying to simp too much at first,” another wrote.
“I bet it took him hours to come up with this,” one joked.
Other men were commenting on the video to ask for advice on how to text their dates better. It had just come to their attention that Gen Z women don’t understand formal written text messages with zero abbreviations.
One wrote: “Can I please get an example to improve this situation? I am guilty of this.”
“Can I ask what it should say, because I definitely say the same thing? I’m 35,” another pleaded.
“For us, 35 plus, can you advise how to [color] it up? Emojis and exclamations?” one asked.
Castaldi responded by saying that emojis and asking for another date were the keys to nailing a post-date text.
Meanwhile, young women also shared that they were in the same boat, dating men in their 30s and being confused by their texts.
“I’m trying to decipher a 37-year-old’s texts right now … so it’s not just me?” one said.
“Had a 35-year-old tell me it was ‘great to connect’ and we should ‘stay in touch’ after a date,” another added.
“Dude its painful! Tragic! Confusing! Lonely at the same time,” another joked.
“Had to check what state you’re in to make sure we’re not talking about the same 35-year- old,” one person wrote.
