When you leave a group of friends, what do you say?
If you're a woman, you probably say "text me when you get home!" I've noticed over the past few years that "text me when you get home!" is basically the female goodbye. Consistently.
I've left parties in Cranberry. "Text me when you get home!"
Work happy hours. "Text me when you get home!"
Friends' house in Friendship. "Text me when you get home!"
Wineries in Gibsonia. "Text me when you get home!"
Dinner in Bakery Square with my sister. "Text me when you get home!"
My husband met me on my walk home tonight because it was a nice evening. I asked him what he said when he left a party because it was on my mind. He was very confused (definitely thought it was a trap of some kind). "Text me when you get home!" was definitely not one of the options.
Women almost always tell other women to let them know when they are home safely. It's something ingrained in all of us. We want to verify the people we care for get home. Why do we all ask that? Did we all take a seminar at some point that advised us to check in with all our friends and family?
Or is it what has happened to all of us?
Have all of us realized that we ended up in creepy Ubers or roofied at bars or followed on the street by screaming men or been followed into bathrooms or driven alone on strange roads or just walked home alone and didn't know what to do or who to contact.
I am definitely in the "text me when you get home" camp. I do it all the time. I have occasionally waited up until I have heard for someone. Based on what has happened to me and what has happened to people I know, I want to hear that other people have gotten home safely.
While on some level it's a nice thing (yay caring about the safety of others!), on another it's awful. Why do women have to ask and make sure that other women get home? Why do we have to worry that the people we know won't make it even going a short distance?
I'm going to continue asking people to text me when they get home (and I literally ask all my friends regardless of gender because I listen to about a million too many true crime podcasts). When people ask me to text them when I get home, it makes me feel like people care about me. If someone tells me that the want me to stop, I will.
Unfortunately, I don't think that day will be anytime soon.
