Sociologists at the University of East Anglia have determined that friends who write confusing or annoying one-word responses to your lengthy messages do so because they are more important than you, and in many cases, they are busy with tasks like running marathons to raise money for a new homeless shelter, or in the very least, they are waiting for the latest episode of “True Detective” to finish downloading.
“Quite often, self-centered individuals wonder why their friends respond with a mere one or two words to thoughtful and meaty messages,” said Dr. Ian Clark, who led a study on the subject. “These narcissists are unable to realize their friends are actually being extremely generous by taking a few seconds to send any message at all.”
The study cites the case of a subject named “Katherine” who sent her good friend “Jasmine” a text message giving an update about her life, asking the latter how she was doing, and suggesting an evening when the two could meet for dinner or a drink. When Jasmine responded with the word “ok,” Katherine pressed her for clarification. Jasmine then wrote “gotta see,” which sent Katherine into a cat-kicking rage from which she never recovered. She was eventually institutionalized.
As it turned out, the egotistical Katherine failed to grasp that Jasmine had joined an NGO in Liberia, where she was working 20 hours a day to save orphans from getting Ebola, and because Jasmine was abroad, the short text messages cost her hundreds of dollars in roaming fees — money that could have been used to save more innocent young lives.
“In short,” Clark said, “people who send insanely short responses should be not be scolded, but should instead be applauded for so beneficently giving their selfish friends the lavish attention their stunted minds crave.”
The study concludes that individuals who use WhatsApp, Facebook or even the old-fashioned method of email to send long messages about varied topics are the real assholes, because they put an undue burden on selfless heroes who shouldn’t be distracted from their frenzied attempts to solve any number of cases of missing children.