I HATE U AND U STINK PS CAN I GET A RAISE. (Flickr/eliduke)
DRUNK TEXTS. We’ve all sent them. We’ve all regretted them.
They’re a menace. So much so that there are entire Facebook groups devoted to defeating them.
Well, fear not. With this step-by-step guide*, you’ll never send “I HATE MY JOB AND UR A POWER CRAZED MANIAC” to your boss ever again.
Ready? Here we go:
*Obviously, the simplest way to avoid drunk texting is to avoid excessive drinking. Just saying.
Step 1. Stop the texts
Your first port of call is going to be one of the many apps to prevent you hitting ‘Send’ on that confession of love/outpouring of furious bile.
The TUI Stopper app for iPhone lets you hide up to six high-risk contacts from your list, for a set time. They’ll be completely removed from your phone book until you decide you’re in a fit state to see them again.
Android users, don’t despair – the Stop Drunk Texting app does the same thing for you.
Step 2. Stop the emails
Perhaps you’re the sort of person who likes to wait until you get home from a night on the tear, then set your relationships to rights via email.
There’s some bad news: Gmail has discontinued its much-loved Mail Goggles feature, which forced you to solve maths problems if you wanted to send a message between 10pm and 4am at the weekends.
But there’s still the trusty Undo Send button, which gives you five seconds to realise the error of your ways and drag the resignation email back from cyberspace. Use it wisely.
Step 3. Stop the Twitter and Facebook regrets
The Lock-Out app for Android – developed by a Wicklow-based startup, no less – not only stops your texts and calls, it also stops you going anywhere near your Facebook or Twitter. Unless, that is, you can pass its battery of sobriety tests – including maths problems and following a maze.
Those late-night “HATE HOW SUM PPL STAB U IN D BACK” status updates will be a thing of the past.
Step 4. Send texts to the right person
You know when you’re texting an unpleasant sentiment about someone, and then you accidentally send it TO that person? Not that it’s ever happened to us, you understand. But, you know. Friends have told us.
Well the Oops! App for Android has a feature that claims to scan outgoing texts, to see whether you’re sending to the right person.
This could save many a friendship.
Step 5. Aversion therapy
Put the fear of God into yourself by looking at Texts From Last Night, an online compendium of regrettable messages from the midnight hour.
Step 6. Actual breathalyser
The Breathometer is an actual, real breathalyser that plugs into the top of your iPhone and displays your blood-alcohol level.
It’s designed to prevent drinking and driving. But we’re all smart enough now to not drink at all before getting in the car, right? So perhaps a better application would be to test your decision-making capabilities for I LUV U SO DAMN MUCH text to the ex.
Ask yourself: am I sober enough to send this text? Then the breathalyser will give you the answer. (Probably no.)
It’s only available in the US so far. But surely it can’t be long before it makes it to Ireland.
