Tall Girl: welcome back to sense, sensibility, and chaos. The podcast that understands that Lol doesn't always mean laughing.

Busy: I'm busy. Sometimes Lol means I didn't read what you said, but I don't want to be the reason the group chat dies.

WellRead: I'm well read, and sometimes lol might just mean I acknowledge your presence, but will confront you in a private chat.

Tall Girl: And I'm Tall Girl. Sometimes Lol means I read and responded in my mind, but won't respond to a text for 3 weeks.

Busy: In this episode we are going to talk about one of those fragile yet essential ecosystems of modern communications.

Busy: the group chat and its shadowy, inevitable twin, the subchat.

Tall Girl: Okay. But like, let's be honest.

Tall Girl: How many subchats do you have.

Busy: Oh, I have many.

Busy: and and I think I at 1 point I would like to sit down and figure out

Busy: how one person is in how many groups cause it's a lot of

Busy: I try to explain to them like, well, I have this individual chat with person A, B and C, then A and B are in group chat, then A and C are in the group. Chat with me, then BC,

Busy: and then there's DAB.

Tall Girl: So as much as I don't like to live my life by the Kardashians. When I found out that there was a not Courtney chat I was like, oh, oh, that's smart labeling your chats with like the person who's not in it.

Tall Girl: That's like a really smart, shortcut way to be like not Julie.

Tall Girl: Julie's not in this one. I

Tall Girl: because I mean, okay, we've all commented the wrong thing in the wrong chat generally, because, like at the speed of light. Okay, maybe not everybody. I've done it.

Tall Girl: I've done it, which is fine.

WellRead: We've all done it. Yeah, we've done it in different ways. I I usually am pretty good about knowing who's in the chat and who's not.

Busy: But.

WellRead: Sometimes I have to remind myself. I'll open up the little bubble and and look at who's in it, just to make sure I'm not doing something incredibly stupid.

Tall Girl: What's hard is when I'm in the car and like somebody will text me and be like, Okay, Julie.

Tall Girl: this is the thing that just happened with Julie. And then, like the group, chat comes in like 3 min later. And it's like Julie being like, Oh, my God, guys like this happened, and it's like a you have to pretend. But then, like the back and forth side chats are being read out by my car as I'm driving, and my brain is like.

Tall Girl: I've gotten information from 10 min ago. I've got real time information. And then there's like the 4th group chat that doesn't even know it's happening yet. That's gonna start this conversation wave over. I'm like.

Tall Girl: it's just too much I have to like. I have to turn the feature off. I'm like, I can't.

Busy: Definitely right now is having.

Tall Girl: My news in real time, or not at all.

Busy: No, I I don't have my text being read to me while driving. I don't pretty much look at my phone while I'm driving.

Busy: unless I am

Busy: I will. I'm not gonna say I never do. But it's I usually I'm just looking briefly, or if I'm stopped at a light, or if I'm on a road where I know it, and it's like abandoned but I don't have the time to care about the chat unless there's some kind of earth shattering life

Busy: like, Hey, we're in a hospital kind of situation.

Tall Girl: I do? Because, like if you're going somewhere and somebody texts like, Can you pick up ice or like Hey, you know what? The whatever the restaurant's closed, or something. So it's like, instead of showing up at like Restaurant B and finding out they had to move to Restaurant C. It's like, you know what. So you just get that like on the road. Kind of whatever, because, you know, especially when I'm going like

Tall Girl: further away to somebody's house for a party. I will always like, if you need anything, I should be there around 3 o'clock, you know, whatever. Nothing like pulling up to their front door, and then, being like, Hey, the thing you passed 30 min ago. Can you stop there and pick up the sandwich order, or something.

WellRead: Can you turn around and do the thing.

Tall Girl: Yeah.

WellRead: Yeah, that's fair.

Tall Girl: Not like.

Tall Girl: I feel some bad sometimes about the chats where it's like Julie has come in with like, here's my crisis, and on the side. It's like

Tall Girl: it would be really great if she could just do the work and grow up herself.

Tall Girl: and or like the planning on the side which is like, how do we help her without overwhelming her? So it's always like, which way will this go?

Busy: I think that can go couple ways. I think that it depends on the situation. So let's take the situation like in this situation, what you're saying of Julie has come.

Tall Girl: I don't know. I don't know a Julie. By the I mean I do know a Julie, but, like the last friend I had, Julie was in like 6th grade. So like this is not personal in any way. Fyi.

Tall Girl: So get Julie out there like. Why is she judging me? I'm like.

Busy: Correct.

Busy: So if if they have some kind of, you know, life situation. And the group chat phone one way and then the sub chat is talking. I think it depends because I think

Busy: we'd lie if we said we haven't done it. I definitely have

Busy: where it's like, all right, you know

Busy: this is going on. What are we doing? How we prepare? Because I think also, sometimes some friends come to you, and their life is in a moment, and they will continue to be the calm and the

Busy: the grounding that they need. But that doesn't mean you actually totally feel that

Busy: so separately, you might be saying to someone else.

Busy: holy crap, you know, like I'm this is what's going on, you know

Busy: you're you know the and above Julie sees the calm duck, and in a sub chat someone sees all the.

WellRead: The furious kicking.

Busy: The fury is kicking of the feet. Definitely, it's not always a bad thing.

WellRead: No. And and sometimes it's also out of concern, right? You. Someone has a crisis, and you set up a sub chat to make sure that with

WellRead: maybe their roommate or something where you're checking in on that person and making sure that they're getting through things in a healthy manner, even a aside from what they're presenting to you.

Busy: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think there's also, you know, the many times when we've had friends who

Busy: something happens unexpectedly like, well, okay. And we know that right now they just need to listen and maybe talk through stuff. But that's also not how we are as personalities. And so separately we go into planning mode like, okay. So who has this? Who has that? Who's doing this? And I think especially the 3 of us, are very good of going into plan mode, and we know what we are best at.

Busy: and we will be like. I'll take care of this. You take care of that.

Busy: and I'm on, you know you're on this. And so I think that is

Busy: sub chats in that space makes sense.

WellRead: Yeah, I think they can be innocuous. They can be minorly vitriolic, but.

Tall Girl: We have a group chat. Well, okay, this isn't telling any big secrets, but we have one called Questionable Content, where we pretty much just send each other gross food, recipes, and.

WellRead: I think.

Tall Girl: It started with, like those 19 fifties, like questionable use of hot dog jello and cool whip and miracle whip, and like a recipe.

Tall Girl: And then it just kind of evolved into this anything that's weird like, I will send you guys Tiktoks, that I'm like. This is just so gross. I must share it with somebody. We literally have a chat group that's just questionable content, that's all it is. And I like these subgroups. I like, I have one, a friend who's not on social media. I was explaining to her once, like Keanu Reeves is on like 600 accounts are trying to reach out to me on Tiktok.

Tall Girl: so like I'll send her a screenshot of what Keanu Reeves said to me today, and then, like I blocked the account.

Tall Girl: That is all I send her like it's called Social Stalker. She gets such a kick out of it. She's like, why is Justin Bieber up in your messages like what happened to Keanu. She creates this whole like sub

Tall Girl: like, why isn't Cindy Crawford, or like Britney Spears reaching out to you? I'm like, I don't know. And then finally, I forget who some singer, I think Selena, or something like, reached out to me. I'm like, do you think the Scammer knows that Selena is dead like.

Tall Girl: if Selina is trying to ouija board me through Tiktok, we've got bigger problems, but like it's just an entire chat of the ridiculousness of like who bot account wise reaches out to me on social media for somebody who's not on social media. We have an entire separate chat where we actually talk about everything else.

Busy: I think it's funny also, with our questionable content, because none of us actually came up with the title of that. Somehow our phones just relabeled the chat. And we're like, who came up with this. And we're like, we realized, none of us actually did that. The phone recreated it based on the chat title, I guess, of what we had talked about. So we're like, all right, questionable content it is.

Busy: And but we also do send restaurants that we want to go to and recipes now that we do want to try.

Tall Girl: Well, we have pizza chat.

Busy: We have P. And.

Tall Girl: You want a slice of me, or something. I think it's called now.

WellRead: You wanna pizza me.

Busy: Yeah, I wanna pizza me. And it's a pizza pizza emoji

Busy: as the title, and that has

Busy: 6 of us. And of that 6,

Busy: 4 of us are in the questionable content one

Busy: but also like from the questionable one. We came up with the idea to do a mustard and ketchup party

Busy: because we were talking about the different types of mustards. And we're like, you know what we need a party gathering where we each make different types of mustards and ketchup, and we will buy different foods to like, you know, hot dogs, hamburgers whatever, and try the different meats with, or cheeses with these mustards.

Tall Girl: Which is what I like. It's like, here's a crazy, terrible idea. And everybody's like, let's plan an event around this terrible idea. It's going to be wonderful.

WellRead: Not a terrible idea. It's a great idea like Roman night was a great idea.

Tall Girl: And that one.

Tall Girl: But it came from some god. Awful recipe like it didn't come out of a good thing. It came

Tall Girl: no really gross idea where we're like, and let's turn it into like.

WellRead: But that's how you know good things can come out of bad sometimes.

Tall Girl: Send you a terrible recipe, and we get a great idea out of it.

Tall Girl: It's like we have a vacation chat which is just like talking about family vacation, so it only gets used like but once a year. But like Oh, my God! Do I wish I could mute it because there's like 30 of us on it. So like.

WellRead: Hmm.

Tall Girl: You come back to your phone after a minute and a half. It's like you have 386 messages. And I'm like, yeah.

Tall Girl: there are so little red dot

Tall Girl: like co-pilot at the end of the day. Like, if you have co-pilot on your computer at work like you can ask it for a summary of a chat like

Tall Girl: apple iphone would be really nice if the end of it you could label certain chats like at the end of the day. Can you just give me a high, level summary because I cannot read every one of these chats like

Tall Girl: we've done it. Not, for we don't intentionally do it to busy, but she just seems to be on the receiving end in one of our chats.

Tall Girl: We'll occasionally just have a meme war like we don't intend to. We don't mean to 800 messages and memes later. We kind of say to ourselves, like

Tall Girl: shouldn't be a when she gets this.

WellRead: Should we have reined ourselves in a bit?

Busy: No, I think.

Tall Girl: It never starts with intent or intention. But I think you just don't come into the chat for like 10 min, and we're like 1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a meme war, and then just boom.

Busy: Happened? No, and that happened.

Tall Girl: Watching you catch up 6 h later. Is.

WellRead: It's hysterical.

Busy: Well, no, that was especially with recently being out of the country and being on the other side of the world, and being 12, No. 14 to 16 hours ahead. So my where I was compared to where you guys were so be like I'd wake up, and it'd be like

Busy: a hundred, 200 text messages I'm like, Oh, my God, what is going on? And it's usually like, and I go through the chats, and it'll be like, all right. That takes care of 2 notifications that takes care of 5, and it's, usually like one chat, that for some reason would just pop off

Busy: All of a sudden. It's like, Oh, there's a hundred of the, and you know 200, you know. Notifications. Alright.

Tall Girl: Or like every once in a while, like a chat from, like the early 2 thousands resurfaces.

WellRead: Yes.

Tall Girl: Like I forgot this chat existed. What the hell is going on

Tall Girl: like? Why, why, why are we using this chat like I didn't even remember it was in my phone book. It's so far down. I'm like

Tall Girl: A, I have to go see who it is. B. If you're android versus apple. I don't know who your phone number is.

Busy: Yep.

Tall Girl: Or then, like that, awkward like somebody starts a new chat, and I'm like, Who's 7, 3, 2, like I don't. I will then have to message somebody to be like, who's this person? They're not in my phone. Everybody since high school is in my phone. I don't know this person.

Tall Girl: Why are we texting with them.

Busy: Yeah, that's also like, when someone introduces their new significant other. So they get added in as.

Tall Girl: No, you can't add significant others to group chats without getting prior approval.

Busy: Okay. I mean, they have.

Tall Girl: Very strong feelings about that, because I don't remember if we ever talked shit about them 6 years ago. But you know they get added to the new group chat. Do they get the whole chat, or do they get like the new feed.

Busy: I was recently at one of our friends house this week. She drove me to the airport, so I you know, one stop by afterwards and give her a little. Thank you, Gift.

Busy: and I was telling her how I messaged her husband before the trip, because I had an idea what I wanted to buy her. And she's like, you have his number. I'm like, yeah. Remember, the 1st time we kind of met him and we were joking. He didn't that we were his friends, because he doesn't have any, which he does. But we were joking, and there was a fight to see who was in his top 10, I said, yeah, he got upgraded from

Busy: your name's boyfriend to your name's, you know, like Jane's boyfriend to Jane's husband, like he got upgraded recently when you guys got married, and because there are some friends, their husbands are still in my phone as

Busy: boyfriend or fiancé. You have not upgraded officially yet.

WellRead: Correct.

Busy: We will see about that.

WellRead: You have not behaved correctly, so I'm going to leave you on.

Busy: You may have put a ring on it that does not mean I will change your name.

WellRead: Yep.

Tall Girl: I also have people in my phone as like Guy with halitosis.

Tall Girl: Or like

Tall Girl: Chick, who keeps on calling me the wrong name, like Descriptor of who they are, because we know I'm terrible with names, but like descriptor of who this person was, not just like Hairdresser Sally, like

Tall Girl: the thing that I remember about you.

Tall Girl: There was a guy years ago he hit on us in a bar, and it was back before, like that fake number came up. The rejection line kinda thing.

WellRead: Oh, yeah.

Tall Girl: So like he was labeled in my phone like aggressive stalker. Dude won't buy like buys. 2 drinks.

Tall Girl: Years later he got added to a group text because somebody else was dating him. And I was like.

WellRead: Oh, it's like those Facebook groups, are we dating the same guy?

Tall Girl: I was just like

Tall Girl: I like I saw it. And I was like, why is this guy in my phone? And I was like.

Tall Girl: a. I need to clean out my address book, but, like B.

WellRead: Should I warn her?

Tall Girl: Oh!

WellRead: Is this a thing that I should tell her?

Tall Girl: Some hangout of a hangout of friends, and like I was like, Oh, God! I remember I because of the description I was like. I remember this dude.

Busy: Not in a good way.

Busy: So when you think about group chats.

Busy: I think there's a life cycle for them.

Tall Girl: Like some die. Some like have a purpose temporarily.

Busy: Right? So it's.

Tall Girl: We have ones during politics, which is like no election news.

Tall Girl: So like 4 or 5 of your friends, the day of an election, the day of the something or other, or like people for a wedding like these people I will never meet again, but like, you know, because whatever.

WellRead: We're all bridesmaids together. We're all in the wedding party somehow.

Busy: Yeah.

WellRead: Yeah.

Busy: So there's a honeymoon phase, I think, like that beginning of like, hey? Putting you all together, or, you know, planning a wedding

Busy: a birthday outing or surprise.

WellRead: Baby showers.

Busy: Yeah.

WellRead: Yeah.

Busy: Stuff of that nature, and then

Busy: you know, then you might have the event.

Busy: or you know there's a lull sometimes between when you started kicking off.

Busy: and if this is event driven or just in general and then.

Tall Girl: Of them. There's like some people who have really good like chat skills like you meet them, and they're not like super chatty or anything. But then, like in a chat, they're like the good meme sender, or they're like the good news sender, or like they're that person who once a day is like, Hi, how is everybody like? It's also interesting to see how people over text communication might be a little bit different than how they are in real life. So it's like.

Tall Girl: Oh, oh, like, you're a punctuation user, who knew? Because

Tall Girl: based on what I knew about you.

Busy: Who knew punctuation user. Yeah, I think that's that's fair to say that there's different personality types.

Busy: And you know, you know.

Busy: and I think it's also that you just get to learn. I mean, I think, as some of our friends get older, like, I have one friend.

Busy: and he's like, look. I'm just not a Texter. He's just a quiet dude, and he's like, I don't mean to ignore you, I'm like, I know. Listen, if it was urgent. I know how to pick up the phone and call. It's never been urgent. I know you have a job, a wife and kids like you have your own life. It is totally okay. I know. I know what the flow is with you, so we're good.

Tall Girl: At some wedding, I forget where, but it was like international people. And the one girl was like, Hi, next Bubble, hey? Everybody like, okay, good morning, everybody. And like the other half, the wedding party was so pissed. They're like, we're on international phone plans. So we're paying daily roaming. But also, our international phone plans are limited on text.

Tall Girl: Stop texting us 88 times

Tall Girl: like, just in 50 words or less. Sum it up in one chat bubble stop sending us endless text messages. This is costing us like trillions of dollars, because you cannot communicate succinctly. And I was like,

Tall Girl: yeah, there's always.

WellRead: There's always that awkward moment that occurs where, like the the chat starts to get heated or a little

WellRead: angry.

Tall Girl: Dang!

WellRead: Are you saying? I'm no.

Tall Girl: Oh, but there's like that one bubble where you're like. Oh.

Tall Girl: oh, I'm gonna stare at my phone for the next 45 min to see what happens. Now.

Busy: Either that? Are you shutting your phone off and putting it away because you don't want to deal with what just happened.

Tall Girl: Oh!

Busy: Or you get your snacks right.

Tall Girl: Yeah.

Busy: This is, gonna this is, gonna be good. We're just gonna sit here

Busy: and I'm just gonna read whatever you know, it's gonna Pop off.

Tall Girl: Groups are like. Do you not remember spring break, sophomore year? And it's like, Oh, oh, that's not.

WellRead: Oh, we're pulling out the receipts.

Tall Girl: Let's no, no, no, let's not bring up history.

Busy: Like going to the Dewey decimal system and getting out like catalogs back in spring of.

WellRead: Meanwhile, you know that there's that one friend in the chat that just laid down for a nap. And all this happened, and you're texting them on the side like, oh, dear God! Oh, dear God! I can't wait till you wake up, because what? Wait till you see what just happened.

Busy: Yeah, or- or that's.

Tall Girl: You're missing it! You and your REM cycle!

Busy: And you don't even like explain why you're chatting them just like, Oh, my God, this is this is, can you believe that? Or like this, and you're commenting to them as if you're commenting in the chat. But without everybody.

WellRead: Without any kind of context.

Busy: And if they look at the individual chat before the group chat, and you're like, what the hell are you talking about? And then you're like. And then often, the 2 seconds later, Chat comes through. Oh, I'm caught up. Oh, I got it.

Tall Girl: I would.

Tall Girl: The days of messenger where it was like, you know, Allison's been added like Julie left. Sally left Tammy left like, and then it's

Tall Girl: that spoke louder than anything like, just know like.

WellRead: Oh, this person's here. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna bounce.

Tall Girl: It should also say like Tim, added Chris.

Tall Girl: like you should not only know who was added, but like who added them.

Busy: That is fair. I think that it's also funny, like in group family chats. Some of so on my father's side we have. There's 8 of us 1st cousins, and then aunts and uncles, and all that. So when it comes holiday times and stuff inevitably, like most of the guys in our family. They don't want to know the details. Just tell me at the end who's who's going? Where? Unless the other one, the host and they don't. So we don't usually include them in the chats, because they'll just inevitably like, please just remove me.

Busy: I don't wanna read all this stuff. Just tell me what's going on, and where I have to be at this time. So.

WellRead: That's me!

Tall Girl: Like, it's like, pick a date. And nobody wants to be like solid on a date. And then you're like, you're so close to like, Okay, it'll be May second. And then somebody who hasn't chatted the entire like. 3 days of planning from the side is like, well, that doesn't work for us, and I'm like.

Tall Girl: No, no, if you haven't been here for 3 days, going back and forth on Tuesday's schedule, and all this like to just come from the side 3 days later, when you can clearly see, like we've narrowed it down to 3 days.

Tall Girl: and then you're like, Well, that doesn't work for me. I'm like, Okay, but it works for 90 of us. So like.

Busy: And I would say, that's 1 of the good things with our group. We just did a group summer planning. And it's group of us from college, and we usually once summer, get together, or, you know, another time during the year, and we have a kind of pretty good, unspoken rule like. Yes, obviously we would love everyone to be there, but it.

WellRead: If you can't be there, if it works for the same, see you next time.

Busy: Correct. We move on and we don't cry. Now. We do expect photos, and maybe a call to feel good later, so that we can commiserate that we're not there. But if it works for 9 out of 10 people, and this time it doesn't work for me.

Busy: See you guys the next time. Please have fun.

Busy: and just make sure you keep me involved in any of the gossip.

WellRead: But those people that tend to be the ones that drop in after 3 days of not communicating, and

WellRead: throw a wrench in the gears. Really, I think they tend to be the type of people who create drama in a group chat. No matter what the topic is.

WellRead: they're.

Busy: And the reason why there is some chat.

WellRead: There's a reason that the subchat exists exactly.

Tall Girl: I am the 1st one to jump in there sometimes and be like oh, so sorry! But you know, like I already sent the invitation to everybody, and literally at the same time. I'm sending the calendar invite out to the 90 other people in the group to be like no, so like the second we come to a solid date. I'm always usually the one to be like cool booked. Whatever.

Busy: You're like, well.

WellRead: It's either it's either you or busy.

Busy: Yeah, like, in mindset.

Tall Girl: Them. Okay. Cool.

Busy: In mindset time to be determined is on. Invite names, location.

Tall Girl: This, many of us, with this many busy schedules and whatever else like. Okay? And then I'm just like, okay, we're we're not.

Tall Girl: you know. Auction closed final bid out just out.

Tall Girl: Oh, oh, well, I had a life change cool. We'll see you next year.

Tall Girl: We'll see you next year.

Busy: Think that like, you know, for, like I said, majority of time, people with our groups are pretty realistic with, oh, I'm sorry I'm gonna miss it. Have fun!

Busy: And we don't really have too many of those people who are like, well, please stop and rearrange everything just because I can't make that one day, and then 10 days late to the planning schedule.

WellRead: Yeah, but there's a choice in that. We chose to let those people go.

Tall Girl: I will say that's the other evolution of like the text group is like, you can see that so many of these groups started with like 20 people, and they are now like boiled down to like

Tall Girl: 10. These are the people who don't cause us drama, like the other chats, happen, but, like.

Busy: These are the people who do not like raise my anxiety level on a daily basis.

Tall Girl: And there are a couple like, you know, we've had it with our friends. Groups like people get voted off the island. Nobody ever really officially says it. But like.

Tall Girl: when the responses are always like, Okay, okay, lol, like.

Tall Girl: you know, your group chat is dying like, you know, it's the last leg of like you're gone.

Tall Girl: We'll be there for you in text form, but that's about it.

WellRead: Hmm, or life just happens, and you you can't talk for a year, for whatever reason, and.

Busy: It. I mean it does.

WellRead: Chat pops back up when life is more appropriate. You know.

Busy: And people come in and out like recently a couple of college friends who got married within

Busy: 60 80 days of each other. And so there are people who we haven't. I haven't seen mostly or talked with outside, like social media, and all of a sudden, like it was like thrown back in together, and it was fine, and it's no problem. And.

WellRead: Yeah, and there's no drama, and there's no tension. It's just

WellRead: the situation is the situation, and you all get together and kind of deal with each other's presence.

Busy: Yeah. And I had, you know, created a group recently. So I found out that one of our friends in college who

Busy: lives in another country is going to be, you know, has a minor role in a Bollywood movie.

Busy: And so

Busy: we, it's created a chat I'm like, Hey, just Fyi. She's doing this. And she's gonna be in this movie. And when I have details on when the movies coming out, we are doing dinner and a movie

Busy: to go support our friend.

Busy: They're like sweet and like. I probably won't say anything until I know this movie is, you know, out and

Busy: cause I haven't even seen it on Imd, you know, dB announced, or anything yet. So as soon as I see it announced somewhere

Busy: to see when it would be in theaters, and we'll figure it out. Then.

WellRead: Yep.

Busy: So.

WellRead: All different reasons for different group chats. And you know it's I. I honestly think that the ones that kind of fall by the wayside can be the most exciting ones, because you don't speak to somebody for 6 months.

WellRead: and then they do pop back up, and you're like, Oh, my God, how are you?

WellRead: You know I haven't talked to you in 6 months. What's what's your life like right now? And you'll get together? You won't get together, but at least the check in occurred, and you're still in each other's lives in some way, shape or form.

Busy: I think a little fun when you have those groups that let's create, think I'm creating a new group. And then you realize, oh, this has been a chat before.

WellRead: Mhm.

Busy: Like we started, and that, like as a chat is going. I kind of scroll back like, talk about last like, Oh, that's right, you know. And then sometimes it's like a reminder. I'm like, Hey, you know, like a year ago you mentioned you were, gonna be, you know, pursuing this certification, or you're you're moving did that ever happen. And it's kind of like a nice.

WellRead: Did that go?

Busy: And it's like, back on this day we discussed that so.

WellRead: Yeah, unfortunately.

Tall Girl: Holiday revival like somebody says Merry Christmas, and then that just like chats, you haven't seen people you haven't seen in forever, like the holiday texts are like, Whoa, okay.

Busy: My mother's family is good with that, and

Busy: there is, I think, a chat about 17/20 of us.

Busy: and it's hysterical because we'll have 2 chat groups going.

Busy: and it's inevitably, and we love you guys. But it's a boomer person who will will all be had, you know, using one of them, and then they forget that someone

Busy: is not in that. And then they do another group chat. And it's like everyone minus one. And you're just balancing

Busy: a million merry Christmases cousins. I miss you. You guys are great. Yes, we're all across the country. And

Busy: oof, it's a it's a lot of texting. So I just have those on.

WellRead: And you copy and paste the same message into both chats? Because you're not sure who's seeing it and who's not seeing it?

Busy: Correct, absolutely.

Tall Girl: I also have a couple of chats like, remember they're in Australia or like, remember, they're in Germany. So like don't text in the middle of the night.

Busy: I don't know. I think it depends on

Busy: like I didn't care. When I'm out of country.

Busy: that people I was actually like saying, people, you can still talk to me and several people, but you're on vacation cool. I might read it, but I'd like to catch up on it when I get back, because I am mentally taking notes. And if you think I haven't done that, you're wrong. I have literally gone into people's chats like they're entering the phone and have listed next time to talk and list out items of topics or create a like an iphone note

Busy: topics. I need to talk to, you know, to tall girl about

Busy: topics I need to talk, to read about and keep the list like an agenda going. So yes, keep me in the know, even if I'm out of country.

Tall Girl: Yeah, I don't do that. I just text you guys, at 3 in the morning with the random like this floated to the top of my head.

WellRead: Love it when you do that.

Tall Girl: Like I need to go back to sleep. This is the thing that woke me up.

Busy: See you in the morning.

WellRead: Where you. You ask a question. In 5 days later one of us has the answer, and it happens at 2 o'clock in the morning, and we're just like, Oh, that thing.

Tall Girl: You still haven't answered one of the questions I sent you, and I'm waiting.

WellRead: Yes.

Tall Girl: Waiting.

Busy: No, the. And here's a perfect example. The group chat with the 3 of us, and she might. Tall girl might message us at 2, 3 in the morning, but then, if it's been a couple of days in a row, and then on the side, I'll be messaging right. I'll be like.

Busy: are we concerned? She's not sleeping well. Do we think there's stress related? Do we need to talk to her like we like sometimes that the times of chatting, and what's being said.

Busy: you know, form, concern, text, subtext of like. When do we have to intervene? We haven't heard from her.

Tall Girl: Generally it's

Tall Girl: I like roll. Whatever I am dreaming about is triggered to like whatever's my brain is very obvious. It does not hide things. It does not do, subtlety, whatever it is that's unresolved in my brain. I generally wake up and, like I used to write notepads like whatever like work idea or whatever. Now, I just send text messages either to myself or other people, because I'm like my brain wants resolution on this.

Tall Girl: And I've learned, if I like text, you guys, it clears it out of my brain and I can move on.

Tall Girl: So no, it's usually not. The insomnia thing is when I send you like 16 tiktoks at 4 in the morning.

Tall Girl: That's usually the indicator that like.

Tall Girl: Now let's not.

Tall Girl: There are times that, miss, at like one am.

Tall Girl: Somebody responds right away to my text messages. So

Busy: Think that'd be me.

Tall Girl: If if we're talking about insomnia issues, might I say some people respond at one Am.

Busy: That's usually me. I am a a late person up at night.

Busy: But the whole migrating back to this time zone has been.

Tall Girl: What are you doing up? I'm like, what are you doing? Responding like, I like that. You're judging me. But also on the other side of that text message.

WellRead: You're awake, too. Have you noticed that?

Busy: No, sir. No, no, that's been fun this week of getting back on the time, and it hasn't been getting to the other side of the world. Fine! No problem coming back. It's

Busy: the time has been a little off.

WellRead: It's always Coming back.

Busy: The one thing so excited that Apple had finally put on their their phones is the send text later. Because man did I miss that from my android and I'll send them like, Hey, I'm sending this at midnight. But you're gonna get it at 8 am. So I don't feel so weird bothering you.

Busy: And so that's 1 of the other things I'll do.

Tall Girl: Every once in a while you would send like Good morning. And I'm like, Oh, right like I knew it in my heart where you were, and based on your find, my location. But like sometimes I'm like, Oh, no, she's not drunk. It's legitimately morning for her, like, okay, cool.

WellRead: I have to pause here for a second and draw attention to the fact that we just referenced. Busy gave us her location guys.

WellRead: She gave us her location. We finally have the triad of locations in the world, and you can all stop worrying about whether or not she actually really loves us.

Tall Girl: Okay, psychotically. Do I look at it every day? I don't care where she is. I'm not trying to stalk her. I just keep on seeing if she's canceled me. And I'm like, let's see how my day is. Gonna go. Will she cancel my access to stalk her.

Busy: I thought this was such a big thing for you, too.

Busy: Oh, my God!

Busy: Like.

Tall Girl: Like I forget why. Well read was like up at her mom's house, and like I just logged in, and then, like she must have walked to the other side of the house, and I saw the dot move, and I'm like, Oh, she's on the move, I'm like. Why, why was that? My thought.

WellRead: She's getting her steps in.

Busy: Well, here, here's funny yesterday well Came to my house and the dog knows her as aunt, you know. Well read, and when you say her name he gets excited. So once you say someone's coming, he goes to the door and he's waiting for them. And he we look, we have conversations. He turns and he looks at me. He barks. He comes up to me. He's very, you know, like

Busy: basically sign in frustrated. I'm like, I don't know where she is. And then I said, Oh, wait a minute. I do know where she is, and I was able to open her chat. I'm like she is, and I'm watching her drive up the highway near me. I'm like she is 5 min out. Calm your nerves.

Busy: and I don't know if you saw him when you were leaving, he barked. As you.

WellRead: Yeah.

Busy: It was just so like deflated when you left.

Tall Girl: I drove up to Toronto last summer I would stalk you, but like oh, no! Look at her driving a reasonable, rational speed. I'm like.

Tall Girl: move and just be like, look at her being a good citizen.

Busy: Meanwhile, when you're driving to and from Red and I are just like Jesus, she is. Gonna get like I'm like she hauling ass this way. And and then the concern, because Mom.

Tall Girl: Legal reasons, I would never speed pushing 57 in a 55.

WellRead: 5.

Tall Girl: Just legally, I want people to know 57, in a 55.

Busy: Allegedly she might be going fast.

WellRead: Allegedly she might be going 92 in a 60.

Tall Girl: Never.

Busy: That's it.

Tall Girl: That's that's absolutely not what that ticket was for.

Busy: Go ahead!

WellRead: Subchats.

Tall Girl: One time.

Busy: Hmm judgment.

Busy: So is there any we feel with sub with chats and sub chats that we haven't.

Tall Girl: I would say the etiquette of sending screenshots of other people's conversations.

WellReadHead: Oh, that's that's always dangerous.

Tall Girl: I will tend to send a bubble, but when people send like the whole chat, or they send like

Tall Girl: way more than whatever, because sometimes it's like, you know, somebody will message you like, you know I'm not feeling good. I'm really not well, whatever. So I tend. I'll send that bubble to somebody and be like, Hey, I think we're gonna need to check in on or like. Just so, you know, like, stop texting her about vacation like her life's blowing up.

Tall Girl: depending on who and what I share. Sometimes I'll just be like, Yeah, stop stop texting in that chat. But when people send like full screenshots, multi pages of conversations, I'm just like

Tall Girl: I get very nervous in future to text you, because and it's not like I say, anything, but it's like

Tall Girl: there. There should be some rules about what you do and do not screenshot, and what you do and do not send, and some people like forever change my opinion of them when they like. Lay people's shit bare, for, like no good reason, I'm like.

WellRead: Those are my some of my favorite moments when

WellRead: you get a a set of screenshots of of the conversation, then at the end of it is. But you don't know this.

Busy: Yes, I don't know a lot of things.

WellRead: I'm Jon Snow. I know nothing.

Tall Girl: But also then, like you, send something out to the chat like, you know, Lucy is having a breakdown, and you send it to everybody to be like. Hey, this is the situation. There's always that one asshole who then goes like, Hey, Lucy? Hey, guys, how are you? For no real reason, Lucy, what's going on like

Tall Girl: that's like when you tell people not to look and their head swivels you're like, are we of an age where you don't know the rules.

Busy: No, I think that's like one of the good thing of knowing in your group chats like we. You know we had a friend who her father was going through some

Busy: illnesses and then passed, was, you know, passed away ultimately, and she hadn't told the group. The 2 other people in our group of 5,

Busy: and I just wanted them to have a heads up. And and I did ultimately tell her later I said, Hey, just so, you know I did let the other 2 know

Busy: because, she ultimately said, You know, can you let them know? I said. I've already done that. I said, I just wanted them to not be unaware should you reach out to them. And sometimes it's more. Not that I'm trying to betray trust, but I put people on standby like, Hey.

WellRead: Yeah.

Busy: If someone is calling like, you know, some people are not callers, and they're texters. So if someone is calling you out of no, you know, right, Field, I just want you to have a heads up that this might be.

Busy: You're aware what's what they're going through.

WellRead: Yeah, I'd say 9 times out of 10. It's out of concern that we do that kind of thing. It's it's very.

WellRead: very, very rarely out of like maliciousness or glee, or Schadenfreude, or any of those kinds of things. It's it's more.

WellRead: This person is going through something, and because you are not on the A list.

WellRead: but you're on like the A.5 list of contact I need you to know why.

Busy: Yeah.

WellRead: Why, this is about to go down. Yeah, so that they have

WellRead: so that they're not hit out of right field. Yeah.

Tall Girl: I've also said, I've gotten better at this over the years, like.

Tall Girl: I swear to God this is not a trauma response.

Tall Girl: I need to decide for me like in a moment of trauma, like in a moment of drama, I need to decide how I want to handle the situation.

Tall Girl: that means I tend to get a little bit quiet, and I've learned over the years I have to like. Tell you guys like I might be quiet for a few days.

Tall Girl: which I didn't used to do so like recognizing that other people are keeping an eye and a tracker on something that I'm not like. I am busy trying to figure out how to piece my life back together. My priority is not you. I've learned over the years to be like going dark for a few days. Everything's okay. I'll get to it later.

Tall Girl: Whereas, like we have friends who need to tell you in the moment I am like, I need to solve it for me. I need to be okay with it for me, and then I can get your feedback, which is like

Tall Girl: learning how certain people communicate like

Tall Girl: you do not communicate the same way, and that's sometimes how it gets missed.

Busy: Yeah, absolutely.

Tall Girl: Or like friends are like, well, I might be doing something Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. But, like, if all those plans drop, then I'm okay with this date and hanging out with you guys, I interpret that as like.

Tall Girl: I have 5 other people I find more important than you, you guys are trying to present me with a solid date. I have 5 in front of you. I had to learn that that's not like always what people mean, because I'd be like, who is this bitch who's got like all these other plans? And if all of them drop.

Tall Girl: then I can hang out with you guys.

Tall Girl: it's like, Oh, that's not actually what she means.

Busy: Okay.

Tall Girl: That took me a few years because I used to just be like these entitled Assholes.

WellRead: And that's what part of the sub chats are. Group for is is

WellRead: or sub chats are good for is.

WellRead: if you are in a situation where you're thinking. Okay, well, this was their intention, or this was the this is my interpretation of the events. The sub chat can often tell you? No, no, no, that's not how they think it's this way.

WellRead: and then you can realign yourself in the main chat and be like, okay. You know, if if those 5 other events that were planned before we we started planning

WellRead: fall through, yeah, we'd love to have you and and mean it earnestly.

Tall Girl: No, but like we will be continuing on without you like.

WellRead: Yeah.

Tall Girl: Oh!

WellRead: But just know we would love to have you if.

Tall Girl: Also the person who comes in like 6 weeks later, with, like, you know, our ketchup and hot dog thing to be like. Well, I don't like ketchup. I'm like.

Tall Girl: that's a you problem like we're not gonna change hot dog ketchup day

Tall Girl: because you don't. I don't like mayonnaise. I just I will work around it. I'm not going to try to hold up a group chat because.

WellRead: Just don't eat it.

WellRead: Come, have a good time, donate.

Tall Girl: Group chats have been like, we know you're gluten intolerant or like, we know you're Vegan like. At this point. You do not need to come into the chat to remind us for the 9,000th time, except when I gave you banana sauce. But that's legitimate.

Tall Girl: It was actually bananas in the banana sauce.

Tall Girl: It can't be that color red and be natural. I was honestly surprised.

Tall Girl: Sorry I wasn't trying to kill you.

WellRead: I know.

Tall Girl: Banana sauce is delicious, though I wish you could experience it without death.

WellRead: I mean, I'm sure.

Tall Girl: But I'm like, why are we reminding people like, I'm a Vegan. I'm like, we've been made so well aware of this for the past 30 years like.

Tall Girl: but my favorite is on holiday chats. When somebody's like, I'll bring a Lasagna.

Tall Girl: and you know that's like Aunt Sally's thing, and it's like, what are you doing?

Tall Girl: You're you're starting a war right now, like, you know, Lasagna is Aunt Sally's thing. Why would you even suggest in this chat that that's the thing you bring to this party.

Busy: Oh, the drama, the drama.

Tall Girl: That's it for Episode 13. When you're in the main chat. The subchat, or the forgotten thread from 2017, called Vegas party. A just know you're not alone.

Busy: Unless you're in a chat where everyone has muted notifications and no one's replied since March. Then.

Busy: yeah, you you are alone.

WellRead: But you're still valid.

Tall Girl: If you enjoy this subscribe, leave a review at the very least. Tell a friend who's looking for background noise. While lounging around in a group text.

Busy: Want to hear more. Join us on Patreon, for where Nope

Busy: join us on Patreon, for where we might be motivated to add stories exclusive content, and behind the scenes chaos.

WellRead: See you next time.

Tall Girl: Until then stay sensible.

Busy: Or embrace the chaos.

WellRead: Preferably both.