Sporgulate (verb): to become preoccupied over the fact that the person you texted two days ago, one day ago, several hours ago, ten minutes ago has not yet texted you back.

Sporgulation can begin immediately after sending a text, or it can manifest itself over time as it slowly dawns on you that the textee has had plenty of time to read the text and is making a choice not to text you back in a timely fashion, or worse, to not text you back at all.

Sporgulating can take many forms.  The most common form consists of repeatedly checking the phone to see if the textee has replied.  The best time to sporgulate in this way is when you are supposed to be focused on something else that is far more important.  Other common forms of sporgulation include sending multiple follow up texts to the textee even though they have not replied to the initial text, talking at length to your friends/coworkers/roommates about the fact that the textee has not yet replied to your text, and imagining a variety of hypothetical scenarios that might explain why the textee has not yet replied to your text.

Sporgulation is a waste of time.  We repeat, it is a waste of time.  But we do it anyway, even though we know better.

Viv: I have been dating someone for about a month, lets call him Doug, and it all started with me asking Doug out on a mobile dating site.  I gave him my phone number via the site, and he immediately texted me to find out when we could meet up.  Since that initial prompt response, however, it has been a total sporgulation game.  We meet up and have a good time. We have beers. We make out in public. We have great, healthy sex.  And then one of us leaves in the morning and I wait a couple days.  Silence.  I text something cheerful, like, “That was so fun last Thursday.  Are you free for more fun later this week?”, and then the real sporgulation sets in.  Doug can take hours to respond, sometimes over 24 hours.  I check my phone every 15 minutes.  I am convinced I will never see him again. I begin to chastise myself for even texting him at all. Isn’t it the man’s job to ask me out? But didn’t I set the precedent by asking him out? Who is attached to normative gender roles anyway? Its 2015!  And then he gets back to me and suggests a date and we meet up and repeat the good time and I assume he was just busy…… Until I start to sporgulate all over again a couple days later.

Sloan: I’m juggling 7 guys right now, which basically means I’m texting them or we’ve gone out on at least one date and there is potential for more. All of them text me. Some of them text me a lot, some a little, some almost never, some just enough. When it comes to texting, we’re all like Goldilocks – there’s a perfect amount of texting for each one of us. The problem is that no one but us knows exactly where that sweet spot is located, so we’re that much more likely to sporgulate, get really, really irritated at someone, or, you know, piss off a lot of bears. One of the men I’m currently juggling, let’s call him Mike, is driving me to sporgulate. I like him more than the others; so much more than I’m forcing myself to keep dating everyone else right now just so I don’t obsess over Mike. I met Mike in real life and our first meetup was fantastic. Except that I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a date – it was “coffee”. The second time we met up it became more clear that we were in “more than friends” territory, but I’m still not sure how interested he is. So. Sporgulation. I send a text to Mike and then put down my phone and try not to obsess about when he’ll text me back. Meanwhile, 6 other men are texting me and I don’t spend more than a minute thinking about their messages or my responses.

Analysis:

Sporgulation is clearly more about the sporgulator’s mental state and emotional needs than about the actual conversation taking place via our handheld devices. It has nothing to do – whatsoever – with the person sending (or not sending) the texts in question.

But what drives us to sporgulate?

Is it human to sporgulate? Is sporgulating even a new phenomenon, or has it simply intensified with our new technologies? Certainly, people sat by their landlines hoping for the phone to ring. They also waited impatiently for the postman to deliver a potential letter from a beloved. So what’s new?

The speed and level of connectivity is new. Social scientists and psychologists have been researching whether or not we feel more or less connected in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and texting. The answer is ambiguous. On one hand, we use social media and mobile technology to stay on the grid, to connect with far-flung friends, and make plans. On the other hand, social media and mobile technology can drive us to compare our lives to others’ lives (and come up short), spark #FOMO (fear of missing out), and drive up our anxiety to peak levels.

So sporgulation is, at its root, about our own insecurities and our attempts to connect with people we do not yet know if we can trust.  It is a side effect of our experimentation with attachment via technology.

Viv: I like Doug but I don’t know Doug yet.  I am in the process of moving away and getting a divorce and this means I do not ask Doug searching personal questions.  I don’t reveal much that is deeply personal about myself either.  Doug and I do not have a level of trust built up that can sustain long periods of comfortable silence.  Each time we see each other may be our last time together.  But we are connecting on intimate physical levels that can lead to attachment the more we sleep together (he spooned me last week and it felt like nestling in a bed of kittens), so the situation can reach high levels of emotional confusion.  Unless we break it off or we choose to have a more personal conversation about what we are doing together, the sporgulation is likely to continue.  I am OK with this.  Like Sloan, I am also dating several other people, in part to mediate the attachment I might feel for Doug.  And again, like Sloan, I don’t find myself sporgulating while texting with other men.

Sloan: I can relate to you, Viv. I like Mike a lot – but I don’t really know him. We haven’t had sex yet, though we’re on that track and it’ll probably happen soon. Once that happens, I’ll be in sporgulation central. The only hope for me is to work on my own insecurities and try to remind myself that I’m great whether or not Mike likes me back. I’m going to have to have a conversation with Mike, eventually, about what this is, expectations, etc. But for now, I’m riding this wave. Whenever possible, I’m going out without my phone, i.e. actually spending time by myself without the baby blanket of instant connection with my network of friends. It’s both terrifying and exhilarating. The bonus is that it really seems to lessen sporgulation. Note that I said “lessen” and not “get rid of.”