Kristine (you know her on my blog as commenter ‘k’) and I were IMing earlier, and she asked what I ended up doing last nite, whether I ended up seeing Mr. W. I told her that no, I hung out with my buddy Dwaine (see post below) and that Mr. W did not return my call yesterday. She said, “I hope you aren’t fighting!” I told her that no, with Mr. W, if I send him an IM or email or voicemail without an actual posed question, he doesn’t see a need to respond. Like if I were gone for a week and I see him online when I return and I IM him with “I’m back at work!”, I’d never get a response. Then if I called him about it, it’d go something like this:
Me: Did you see my IM?
Him: Yeah, you’re back at work.
Me: How come you didn’t respond?
Him: I didn’t see a question, what was I supposed to respond?
Whereas the rest of us non-socially-challenged people would’ve written back, “I see! How was the trip? How is it back at work? Is it busy?” etc.

Kristine laughed and agreed, saying that’s how her male buddies respond, too…or rather, don’t respond. And all we’re asking for is an acknowledgement of some kind, like “Welcome back!” or something, anything. And then I said, “Watch, I’m gonna do an experiment right now. I’m gonna IM Mr. W with some random statement that doesn’t have a question posed.”

And then I opened up a dialogue window with Mr. W and typed him, “It’s cold in here.”

I told Kristine what I did and IMed her:
me: A concerned boyfriend would ask if I want to borrow a jacket or something. Or if I know how to adjust the thermostat.
dum de dum…nothing.
on the other hand, I’m gonna send Vanessa “It’s cold in here.”

I did so, and within seconds, here’s how Vanessa’s dialogue box looked:
me: It’s cold in here.
Vanessa: I think the air is on high everywhere because of the smoke
But courts are normally cold

I told Kristine about this, and she said, “Haha, see? Vanessa is normal! Or at least considerate!”

I told Vanessa what I was doing, and she said:
Vanessa: Interesting!
I am going to type Jay it
Hold on one sec
NOTHING!
WTH?
me: HAHAHAHAHA
see, it’s a GUY thing!
Vanessa: He was just writing “How’s ur day going?”
And I wrote
It’s cold in here
And then nothing
from him
me: HAHAHA
Vanessa: 🙁
I can hear crickets in that conversation
me: we EACH have an IM window open w/our boyfriends which say:
‘me: It’s cold in here.
Sent at 10:20 AM on Friday’
and then NOTHING

We talked about other stuff for a couple of minutes. And then:
Vanessa: He seriously has not said anything!
I am shocked
We were having a conversation back and forth and now nothing

I gave the results of our 2nd lab rat (Jay) to Kristine, and Kristine couldn’t resist adding a third lab rat, her ex, namely, TBG.
kristine: I broke down and sent it to T…i’m sooo curious! ha ha
ooh..this is what T sent:
me: IT’s cold in here
T: whining is for weiners

Ick. :/

Vanessa took the experiment a step further.
Vanessa: So I decided to write something else which I was thinking anyways,
“You have the cutest smile”
And no reply
Maybe he is busy
oh…wait a minute
He is typing back
“Thank you”
LMAO!
me: he only acknowledges compliments?
maybe I should try that next.
Vanessa: Should I type back It’s cold in here?
me: HAHA, I don’t know!
Vanessa: I did it
let’s see if he replies…
You would think a guy would think of nipples geting hard and say something along those lines…
“Jay: Do u hv a sweater or a jkt”
me: so extra prompting or poking got him to respond.
Vanessa: Yup!
She made a joke about writing the notation in the lab notebook, “species responds to enviromental comment once they get a compliment”, and I added to her imaginary notebook, “my base hypothesis is thus formed that the male of said species is vain.”

Right around then Mr. W actually called me from work and said, “Why is it cold in there?” So I considered it a redeeming response and I love him again. 🙂 Little does he know how close he came. j/k! I told him over the phone about the experiment, and about TBG’s response to Kristine in the experiment, and he said, “That’s probably what we’re ALL thinking except some of us has just decided to stay quiet about it.” 😮 How rude.

And then a last lab rat in the experiment, the IMs between Vanessa and her boyfriend Jay:
Vanessa: Thank you for participating in the social experiment
Please stay tuned to Cindy’s blog for results
Jay: I have a bad headache
Vanessa: You do Bay?
From the smoke?
Or from the stress?
Jay: Neither but thank you for participating in my social experiment

HAHAHAHA!