Does anyone have a practical guide for communicating via text

Read anything you write over a few times before sending, and try to read it with fresh eyes, if there is anything that could possibly be misinterpreted, or that might be interpreted as unfriendly or hostile, change it.

I love it when people use emojis, it's so much easier to know that the conversation is not tanking. I do need to get better at asking for clarification in a non-blunt way.

Haha at this point i'm thinking of making a whole new chat app that has built in chatGPT functionality to act as a friendship coach or something.

Your message is very helpful to me, I have been loosely looking at the successes and failures trying to figure out who i am compatible with. Sure is tough though to hear time and time again that what I thought was good conversation was actually not.

I am coming out of depression that I had for 10 years, which probably didn't help my social skills. I am beginning to find my hobbies but I am not sure what I enjoy yet. The problem I have is people don't message me ever. If I wait for them it will never happen. I hate that feeling of harrassment I get when I even send one message to people, I want to just let the person know I"m thinking of them, I tried to vary my pace to like once every 3 days but then they just unfriend me.

You bring up a good idea of making plans in person rather than attempting to text. Maybe I should make more of an effort to reaffirm in person our friendship rather than try to maintain it via text message. Thank you for your input.

I much prefer texting. I do reply a lot with single word or two word answers. I think I'm lucky my friends use emojis a lot otherwise or I'd  be very confused. If I'm not sure of something I reply "oh..." a lot and hope they expand on what they've said 

Was gonna say chatGPT but you already mentioned, plus that's only really going to be useful for emails. Texting and so forth is more of a timing and balance issue, I think. As the roughest of rough guides, you would want to approximately match the other person. Frequency, volume etc, in order for them to not find it jarring. Roughly.

So if they send brief one liners, and you send long messages, or they message once a day and you message 10 times a day, or they are talking about surface level nonsense and you talk about meaningful stuff ... (and you get the idea). But it would just serve as a guide, with a lot of leeway.

No, the NTs saying "incompatibility" isn't helpful really, as they are just assuming neurotypicality and, or, just being polite cos they don't want to feel they have hurt your feelings.

But it's also somewhat correct since, maybe they aren't the right people? I'd say, maybe put some rough constraints in, if you notice you have a tendency to overcomplicated in one way (say), but also, you would want to find people who naturally match you in that way. Probably a balancing act.

Rol said:

All of the answers I have gotten is "You just have to feel when to do things or what to say" which is really unhelpful. I really wish there was a flow chart for this kind of stuff.

Yeah this isn’t a helpful answer, I seem to be the Queen of killing group chats somehow but I have no idea why! I think you also make a very good point about not having to completely change your communication style to talk to NT people, they need to accommodate you as well. Meet in the middle. I’m not sure how to answer some of your questions it will depend on context, some people may think texting hi once a day is too much but texting people multiple times a day especially if they haven’t had time to reply can feel like harassment. I only usually text people if I have something specific to carry on a conversation about or sometimes if I haven’t spoken to them for a long time and there’s likely to be more to say. I have also been on the otherside in the past as well, it is very hard to carry on a conversation with someone who gives very short, blunt, basic answers and doesn’t actually engage in conversation. All the more frustrating if they’re the one who sent the first message. Your friends may have a point about meeting more compatible people, I have much better communication with other ND people, do you have any hobbies you could join a group for?

I’ve no guide as such to offer but share your problems with text communications. I struggle to understand the meaning of messages received so very often and generally don’t get the sub plot. It has caused huge problems and was the medium of communication which led to my suicide attempt late last year. My own approach has so often been to shut down and withdraw from communicating electronically but this brings a different set of problems.  The most effective electronic comms I have are with people who have a very real physical presence in my life, people I see day to day and talk to f2f. My only social media is Facebook and here I have a personal rule to only have friends who I actually know in real life and have a real relationship with, this works well for me as when there are comms breakdowns online on text/chat etc we can actually sort it out f2f.