A whole lot evolves involving the year that is first of and those that follow — including references to “home, ” “dinner, ” and “love. “

Therefore loves that are many having a “hey. ” A tentative “hey. ” A hopeful “hey. ” And much more frequently than in the past that “hey” just isn’t talked, but delivered through a text.

That first “hey, ” if all goes well, is came back; after that, the “hey” becomes an idea to have together. Which becomes another want to meet up. Then more plans, then more plans, until making plans becomes redundant.

In October of 2009, Alice Zhao’s boyfriend offered her a present to commemorate the one-year anniversary of these very first date: A term document containing most of the texting they’d exchanged during the year that is previous. He called their present, awesomely, #thegiftofdata. This October, to commemorate their year that is sixth together Zhao took that Word doc and expanded it. She took the texts from their very first 12 months together and then contrasted them to some other collection of information she’d collected: texts from their sixth 12 months — a 12 months that saw the 2 transitioning from involved to newlywed.

Just just What Zhao discovered ended up being, then romantically revealing if not scientifically rigorous

First, she compared several of the most terms that are commonly-used the few’s text messages — “love, ” “ok, ” “dinner, ” and, yes, “hey” — looking at their circulation in year one versus 12 months six.

The relative distribution of those terms loosely tracks the comfort that set in as the pair shifted their interactions from on-phone to in-person as Zhao notes. “Our conversations changed from ‘hey, what’s up? ‘ to ‘ok, sounds good, ‘” she writes in a article describing the project. “We stopped saying each names that are other’s our texting. We don’t say in ‘love’ as much anymore. “

Names, too, became extra-superfluous because the set settled into coupledom. Read more →