Ask any college-aged girl who they text the most, and they'll probably give you two answers: first, their mom, and second, their best friend group chat. I don't know how we survived before group chats existed. My phone is constantly blowing up with notifications from the big friend group chats I'm in. Any girl who's in a group chat with all their girl bffs will tell you that these group chats are ESSENTIAL for so many reasons. Here are thirteen things that every girl has definitely sent in their group chat:
1. "Which picture should I post on Insta?"
Every time a girl posts a photo on Instagram, that photo has been carefully picked and edited by no less than three of that girl's friends. When we send three nearly identical photos into a group chat, it's a cry for help; we need our bffs to tell us which one we look best in or, more importantly, which one we definitely shouldn't post because we do NOT look good. Along with a response saying which picture we should post, we also usually get two or three different edits of that one picture. And then the process starts all over again: "Which edit should I post on Insta?"
2. "Can someone caption this for me?"
If you think choosing the process of choosing a photo is monotonous, you'll hate the caption-picking process. "I can't think of anything, can someone just caption this for me?" is a common text in my group chat every time someone is posting a photo on Instagram. Someone is always really good at it, suggesting really clever puns. Someone always suggests a Drake lyric. There's that one girl who always says, "be bold, just go with no caption" because she's even worse at coming up with captions than the girl asking for help. And of course, someone always suggests, "Um, idk, just use an emoji *inserts dolphin emoji*." (That's always me)
3. "Omg, did you see *insert name's* Insta/Snap?"
As much as us girls LOVE to build each other up and support each other, we're still crazy sometimes when it comes to drama. Your ex-boyfriend posted a picture on Instagram with a new girl? Screenshot and send to the group message. OMG who is that? That girl from your English class who always makes a face whenever you speak in class is tagged in a photo with one of your other friends? Screenshot and send to the group chat. Wait, I didn't know they were friends?? Girls are crazy, and group messages just let us spread that crazy out faster than having to text everyone individually.
4. "Guys, go like and comment on my insta"
5. "Are we looking cute or homeless?"
6. "Does someone wanna go get food with me?"
It doesn't matter how much food you have in the apartment or the fact that you only have $3 in your bank account, sometimes you just need pizza like RIGHT NOW. So you ask your friends to join you. Girls can't seem to do many things by themselves; we need company whenever we go get food, go to the bathroom in public places, or pretty much everything else. Besides, who wants to eat in the caf when you can go get real food??
7. "Can someone bring me food?"
If you tell the group message that you're going to get food, there's always someone who asks if you'll bring it back for them. Most of the time the answer will be, "no, just come with me," but sometimes a true friend will bring you back a Chipotle bowl or mozzarella sticks from the deli. A real miracle happens when someone texts the group chat: "I'm going to get food, can I bring anything back for anyone?"
8. "Someone come to the caf with me, I'm in here alone"
9. "Does this sound okay?"
It's common knowledge that anytime a girl gets an interesting text message, a screenshot of the conversation is automatically sent to her bff group chat. What is less well known is that pretty much every girl in that group chat helped draft the response to said interesting text message. This usually includes various rounds of rough drafts, differing opinions on punctuation, and usually a fight about emoji usage. If you're waiting for a text back from one us and it says that we've been typing for the last twenty minutes, this is usually why.
10. "Someone come over, let's do wine night."
College girls will find any excuse to have a wine night. Wine just makes everything better. Cleaning the bathroom? Wine night. Watching a romantic comedy and feel like having a good cry? Wine night. You have to work on a group project and no one in your group knows what they're doing? Wine night. You just checked your bank account and realize you have no money left because you keep buying wine? Wine night. The only thing better than a wine night alone is a wine night with your pals, so everyone is guilty of inviting the girls over on a weekly basis for a little rosé.
11. "Who's coming over for The Bachelor?"
I've never been an avid watcher of reality tv, but last summer my college friends suggested that we all watch The Bachelorette every Monday and talk about it (in our group chat) as a way to make sure we all talk at least once a week while home for the summer. Having never seen it before, I assumed I was gonna hate it; after the two-hour season premiere, I was HOOKED. Now every Monday, we organize a Bachelor/Bachelorette watch party- there's snacks, wine, a list of weekly predictions, and more. Fights have broken out in the group message over different contestant fandoms (Team Corn or not). Every Monday, we can expect someone to ask who's coming over to watch the show that night.
12. "Does anyone want to go out tonight?"
13. "Everyone go put pants on, we're all going out."
Despite everyone's busy and contrasting class schedules, club meetings, work shifts, and designated nap times, the weekend is the time for coming together and going out. When it's 10 p.m. and no one has made any plans about going out in the group message, it's time to take charge and rally the troops. Some people may protest, but they can usually be persuaded with the promise of borrowing that cute blue shirt they always ask to wear and a drink once were out.
I have no idea what boys send in their group messages, but I'm sure that almost every girl can relate to all of these texts.
