First Responder

I work for a civil litigator. She emails me, on average, fifty times per day, and expects an immediate response to each one, even if it is just the word, "confirmed" to which she usually replies, "tnx". If I don't respond quickly enough to let her know I have read and understood one of her emails, she yells out from her office, "Did you understand that?!" because as someone who is operating under 100+ deadlines at any given time, she needs to know that I am paying attention to everything as much as she is. I have become conditioned by working for her into thinking that this is normal, that when someone texts me, they want a response as quickly, no quicker than that, as my fingers can type it out on a virtual screen. It's hard to switch it on and off all the time. I have to be hyper-vigilant for eight-ten hours of the day and then go back to acting like I give zero fucks the rest of the time. It's transferred over into how I react when someone takes too long to reply to me. I was talking to my dear friend Gabriel about this. We are similar in terms of how quickly we respond to people. Turnaround time for me on a message is usually within 1-5 minutes. Gabriel is just as prompt, usually. Any longer than that feels rude. It's partially due to my job, but I have always been pretty prompt. I asked him why his wife, my best friend, who I love more than anything (no lesbo) hadn't yet answered a text I sent her days before. "It's been two days!" I said
"She is in New York," he offered, "Working."
I knew that she was in New York on a buying trip, but I was still indignant about it. "No excuse," I said, because I don't see why she can't Swype me a quick LOL while checking out accessories.
Most people are not this way. I asked my co-worker why it occasionally takes boys a full 24 hours to respond to a text, and he said, "Guys don't do it to hurt anyone- we just start watching Games of Thrones or playing Angry Birds or something and we forget that literally anything else exists."
I think I'm just too used to multi-tasking. I'm not actually just sitting by my phone, staring at it and waiting for a reply, I'm knitting something, watching an episode of Community, making dinner, possibly reading an article on Jezebel, AND checking my phone every few minutes. When I finally get a reply, I respond too quickly, and I know I probably come off like this:


And then the other person is probably all, "BITCHES BE CRAZY!!!!!".
I try to lock down my neuroses- if I can. When I was seeing Mike, I would leave my phone in my car when I was at work because if it was near my desk, I would text him just out of habit or if I was bored or if I thought of something funny, and nobody needs all that noise. Once it was clear that I had changed from a cute girl to a buzzing irritation to him, I didn't want to give him the motherfucking satisfaction of getting annoyed with me. I still sometimes just turn my phone off because I will keep checking it and not even realize how many times I have. It's the modern-day nervous tic, checking your screen to see if anything new has happened, if you have a reason to keep smiling today.
It's especially hard to not look like an overeager puppy when it comes to someone I think I like but can't see in person because they don't live near me. It's trying to build something on the fragile foundation of Facebook messages and Instagram likes, even if it's a friendship. I keep trying to be a really cool girl and pretend I have better things to do than respond to every message they send me as quickly as I can, but I'm not, not if I like someone and I don't care if they know it. I'm not subtle, and I'm not good at hiding how I feel. I know I come off as overenthusiastic because I am overenthusiastic. I do have more important things to do than send someone a video of baby sloths while I am also typing up a cover letter to the court and responding to one of my boss's emails, but I will send it while I am in the middle of this and probably fifteen other things, because I just want them to see it. And because everyone needs baby sloths.