That you are Vanda - that you are.

Me too for that matter.

I also get annoyed with blokes that message me, turn it onto sexual chat after 5 or 6 messages and when i say i am not interested ignore me, only to message me again a couple of weeks later with exactly the same pick up line they used the first time round!

Grrr!!

Text speak is a big no-no for me. I can live with it in MSN chats but for PMs and emails it really bugs me and gives the impression that the other person is either lazy or doesn't think that I deserve the effort of them making a good impression. In fact, I think txtspk is probably the main reason I'm not dating the guy I've been out with a couple of times in the last month. In person he's quite sweet, well-spoken and all that jazz but he constantly uses txtspk in messages to me and is pushing for kinky talk....it's actually scarily Jekyll & Hyde

Anyway, I'm sure I had a point when I started this but I'm buggered if I can remember it now....

I thought you'd made your point. Hmm.

I think that some people have got so used to using text speak that they don't even realise they are doing it. Personally I don't even want to see it on msn, it belongs in text messaging on phones only.

On msn my mine hatred is my mate with a selection of emotes that he's attached to fairly ordinary words or parts of words. ant, tit, lol, chin and lots more. Makes reading what he says a bit tricky and tedious.
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That's alright then. I just have a habit of rambling on and forgetting what I was trying to say in the first place....glad to see I managed to put across what I was trying to say.

As for the MSN thing, I hate all the custom emotes that end up falling in the middle of random words because the idiot on the other side hasn't thought through their shortcuts very well. And heck, if you can't find an emote to compliment what your saying in the default ones (of which there are too many anyway) then perhaps buying a thesaurus to expand their vocabulary might help? Don't even get me started on the flashing ones....

*gets off high horse*

Tough one this Teggs. Some messages are consigned to the bin straight away for me. Content is king.

I don't have any major beef with txt speak. Some of the most coherent and articulate people I know still resort to it when sending a txt or email. Its a Marmite thing I guess. I'll lapse in to it occasionally, but that's because at heart I'm a geek and I've spent a lot of time trying to cram as much info as I can into one sentence when I've been gaming (eg. 'lol fk u ckfag').

Most messages will get a reply unless they go straight for the email/MSN address straight away. Fuck that. That's just an invitation to an awkward conversation, which usually ends up with me saying 'SO I HEARD YOU LIKE MUDKIPS?'. A couple of messages back and forth first is fine. If I like someone enough to flirt/dick around/get to know them I like to get their email address fairly quickly myself, but not straight off the bat, that's just rude (random requests from people I've 'known' for a while excluded, of course).

The ones that grab my attention are the ones that have picked something out of my profile. They're guaranteed winners. It shows they've a) gone to the trouble or reading it, b) are interested enough to have read it and c) have enough nouse not have a fucking clownshoes opening gambit like 'how r u?'.

Have some imagination ladies. At least sending a picture of a big red shanker requires effort. Save the pleasantries for when you're waiting for the bus or when you're sharing a lift with someone. Use your head. (This excludes Swedish/Asian contortion artists with no gag reflex and a penchant for being treated like total dirt in the bedroom.)