Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

Always changing your phone number keeps the bill collectors away, but also has its downsides.
Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

I do something my friends, co-workers, and acquaintances absolutely hate. No, I'm not talking about writing this column -- they love this as much as you do. I'm talking about my insistence on getting a new phone number whenever I get a new phone.

I do this for two reasons. One: I have shitty credit, and changing your phone number regularly helps keep bill collectors at bay.

Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story
Creatas/Creatas/Getty Images

Fuck this guy.

The second and most important reason, though, is because when you get a new phone number, it's not unusual, at least for the first few weeks, to keep receiving calls and texts from the friends and family members of the person who had that phone number before you. And if you've never done it, let me be the first to tell you, it is shit-tons of fun replying to those messages.

Even the mundane stuff is good times. Say you get an innocuous text, like "Hey, let's meet for drinks later!" You immediately fire back "I'd rather fucking die."

New Message Cancel To: + Drinks later? I'll die before I agree to that. This is my promise to you. What the motherfuck????

Frenemies!

As soon as you hit "send," you know you've just changed someone's life, even if only for as long as it takes them to clear up the resulting confusion. Knowing you have that kind of power is intoxicating. It's like piloting a drone that only targets personal relationships.

Anyway, let's circle back to the fact that fucking with people who think you're somebody else via text message is a rocking good time. Some people have built entire careers on it.

Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story
Wikipedia

"Career" might be too strong of a term.

So what's the point of all this, you ask? Simple: I got a new phone number a few months back, and, in terms of messages from people who think they're talking to someone else, I struck gold. I'm reposting the exchange here, verbatim, as it still appears on my phone. I'll be adding commentary between the messages, because this isn't BuzzFeed. Also, the avatar of the person on the other end changes based on who I assumed I was talking to at each point during the conversation. They are just representations. I never talked to Justin Bieber, is what I'm saying.

OK, enough with the legal mumbo jumbo. Here is the most awkward text message exchange between strangers ever.

It started with this message:

9:38 OPEN monay wanna make $15? Oct 31, 2012

Keep in mind, I work on the Internet. Of course I want to make $15. After giving it some thought, I crafted up an eloquent, perfectly worded response:

Yep Oct 31, 2012

Keep it simple, I figure. I don't know what getting this $15 will entail, but why complicate things right up front? It's no matter, because my reply was enough, and the response it elicited was a beauty:

Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

Oh boy! If those of you reading at home haven't pieced it together by now, my phone number didn't belong to someone. This phone number belonged to a prostitute. And now I'm about to negotiate nasty $15 sex on her behalf. Standards are your mother's hustle.

Anyway, picking my jaw up off the floor didn't provide adequate time to reply, so before I had a chance, Mr. Creep shot back with this:

Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

This guy was not messing around, at least not with the negotiation portion of the process, and I decided I shouldn't either. After some quiet contemplation and more than a little market research, I hit back with this reply:

Blowjob and nachos Nov 2, 2012

Bargain basement blow jobs and cheap nachos seem like they should be on the same menu, right? They both come with the same amount of regret the next day. Apparently this is what passes for a good answer among the pay-for-sex community, because he wrote back immediately:

Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

Come on! Who calls it "the clap" anymore? The only way to reply to a question like that is with a joke. Here's what I came back with:

Do you go over his place?so I can give you his number? Nov 3, 2012 What about clap? Nov 3, 2012

Meanwhile, some cripplingly sex-starved man gets his question about the risk of contracting venereal disease answered with a sassy comment about applause and decides "Fuck it (literally), that's enough information for me."

SO where you wanna meet? Nov 4, 2012 $50? Nov 4, 2012 for sex? Nov 4, 2012

Yikes. So my main concern at this point is keeping poor Monay from being tossed in some maniac's trunk, so I sent the reply that no petty criminal ever wants:

Shit. Wait. I think you have the wrong number officer Nov 4, 2012

It seemed like a funny little way to put a cap on this surreal and absurd exchange, but then a reply arrived that changed everything:

Shit. Wait. I think you have the wrong number officer Nov 4, 2012

So that part was comforting at least. It's the rest of the message that set off alarms.

was in your math class last year with mr.polock and that short lady Nov 4, 2012 You got tht mean cake Nov 4, 2012

Listen, I know what "mean cake" means, and I appreciate the compliment on the quality of my pussy just like any other girl. That said, this text message exchange has clearly turned into a felony. I don't have a hooker phone, I have a high school hooker phone. No one calls their professor "Mr. Pollock," and definitely no one in college calls it "math class." Yes, something is very amiss here. It's time to put this depressing snapshot of the American school system to rest before Chris Hansen kicks in my kitchen door with a plate of cookies and a pitcher of lemonade.

Jesus You have the wrong number dummy. Nov 4. 2012

You can tell he's starting to piece things together finally. He writes back with this:

This isn't Monay? Nov 4, 2012 :( Nov 4, 2012

Frowny face! Can you believe the audacity of this one? No wonder he's paying for sex. Chicks do not respect emoticons. Ever. His day has been shitty enough, so I refrained from sharing that wisdom in favor of just ending things like an adult:

Ha! No. Nov 4, 2012

At this point, it's pretty clear the kid knows he's been caught doing something awful and he's moved into damage control mode. You can see that plain as day in his final reply:

You know anyone who gives head? Nov 4, 2012 Type message

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make $15.

Adam hosts a podcast called Unpopular Opinion that you should check out right here. You should also be his friend on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.


Most Uncomfortable Text Message Exchange Ever: A True Story

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