Hearing you’ve received a text message should be exciting – unless of course, you’re a single woman. Being a single woman means that you receive a handful of super annoying text messages that men just don’t. From unwanted nudes to vague missives about plans, checking the texts on your phone can sometimes feel like you’re opening Pandora’s box.

Here’s a few kinds of super frustrating text messages that single women are intimately familiar with –

1. The Maybe we’ll see each other, maybe we won’t… text.

You texted him to confirm plans for the evening and he sends something like this back: “Hey. Totally want to see you. Just have to hit up my boy Jeremy’s party for a bit, then swing over to the local watering hole for a quick bday celebration then hopefully catch Tony’s band downtown for a bit. I might be in your hood around 11:30 pm. I’ll text you.”

Why this is annoying: If you really want to see us, you wouldn’t have planned a whole evening full of plans without us. If I knew you were going to be busy we would have made other plans… with someone else.

2. Let’s play it by ear.

This is the text that usually follows the above mentioned “Maybe we will, maybe we won’t” text. The only time it’s OK to text this is when it’s in reference to other already set plans, like: “After we have dinner at the Tapas Bar we can grab a drink at that new hip cocktail place or maybe a beer at the craft brewery next door. We can play it by ear!” However, when it’s the former and you’re sending “Let’s play it by ear” in reference to making any plans at all, it says to us, “I can’t commit to anything with you.” Our response to this? You’re not worth our time.

3. The non-sexual text that’s made sexual by too many winky emoticons.

This text looks something like this:

Him: “How’s it going? ;)”

You: “Good. How about you?”

Him: “Doing anything fun? 😉 ;)”

You: “I’m just at work. What’s up?”

Him: “I just went to the store, lol 😉 ;)”

Uh, dude. We have no idea what you’re getting at, but all of those winking smiley faces are starting to creep us out. Are we supposed to interpret this totally benign conversation as sexual? Are we supposed to ask you what you bought at the grocery store? Are you going to tell us in the next text that it’s a set of satin sheets  “;) 😉 ;)”?! Please, communicate like a normal adult human being. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about any of this!

4. Are you awake?

This one usually arrives very, very late at night. Sometimes we wake up to one of these texts and see that the time stamp says 4:30 am (Why would I be awake?!), other times these arrive when we’re actually trying to get to sleep, rousing us from our precious slumber. Basically, this is a call to hook up. Single women get these texts All. The. Time.

5. D-bombing

When unsolicited and unwanted, this is the dating equivalent of a drone strike. It’s like romantic terrorism. Men think that single women like receiving these kinds of photos (and maybe some of us do, sometimes), but more often than not, they arrive at the most opportune moments – like when we’re visiting our grandma or at book club. When this happens, they are usually met with a “Oh god! What the…?!” reaction. Which, I’m guessing isn’t what you were going for. Here’s the thing: we like a bit of mystery. We don’t need to see the whole package – literally. So, stop sending us these texts unless we ask. It’s weird and gross.

6. Send pics please.

Want to kill the romance between you and a special lady? Send this text. What this text really means: “I want to see naked and/or close-to-naked photos of you.” This text is particularly creepy when you barely know the other person – like, you just met them online. Even if we do have some kind of established relationship, when we receive a text like this, we just assume the person is only interested in one thing (whether it’s true or not.)

7. No texts at all.

As much as we like to complain about all of the ridiculous texts we receive as single people, there is no greater silence than the sound of a phone that doesn’t buzz at all. When your phone is completely silent for hours or days on end, we start to wonder if we should call our cellular provider. This is when we feel our singleness the most. As frustrating as these kinds of texts can be, they’re a reminder that maybe, somewhere, there’s someone out there for us.