GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Culture
ALARM BELLS
A Wellington woman has begun quietly reassessing a promising new social connection after noticing that the first text message she sent to her had been turned green.
Thirty five year old marketing advisor Rachel Moore had been feeling upbeat after meeting someone new at a friend’s birthday drinks over the weekend. She exchanged numbers with “Sarah” after a free flowing conversation and walked home thinking she might have finally made a new adult friend, which is no mean feat at her age.
She remained upbeat until she sent the first follow up text the next morning.
“I messaged saying ‘Great to meet you last night!’ and when it sent as green, my stomach dropped,” she said. “I didn’t even read the reply. I just stared at the colour.”
Rachel is a committed Apple user. She upgrades her iPhone regularly and is currently paying off her latest handset in neat monthly instalments.
“I’ve always been a blue bubble person,” she said. “Blue bubbles say something about you. Green bubbles also say something, and I don’t like what they say.”
The green message immediately raised questions.
“At first I thought something was wrong with my phone,” Rachel explained. “I checked my settings. Restarted it. Turned iMessage off and on. Then it clicked that it wasn’t me. It was her.”
Rachel says the issue is not about Android phones as such, but about the way the interaction suddenly felt different.
“No read receipts. No typing dots. No reactions. Just messages appearing when they appear,” she said. “It felt distant. Like sending a fax.”
She admits she began to question the friendship almost instantly.
“I thought, if this is how our communication starts, what else are we misaligned on? Are they anti Apple? Do they not care about convenience? Are they okay with this chaos?”
Her flatmate Jess said the moment was dramatic.
“She came into the kitchen and said ‘My texts are green’ like she’d been betrayed,” Jess said. “Then she sat down and went quiet.”
Despite acknowledging that the hang up is irrational, Rachel says she can’t shake the feeling.
“I’m sure she’s a nice person,” she said. “But I can’t stop thinking about that green bubble.”
Rachel has not replied again yet, saying she needs time to “process the situation”.
“It’s not personal,” she said. “It’s just hard to build a friendship with someone who forcibly changes the colour of all my messages.”
More to come.
