<p>Um, this is so idiotic that it pains me to type it. I feel like at 47 I should have a better grip on interpersonal relationships!</p>
<p>I have an old friend—who I will now call OF—that I’ve lost touch with over the years. We were close when our kids were young but we switched school systems and haven’t been in touch much. I haven’t seen her in four years, and before that it had been a few years. So we’re not close, and our paths wouldn’t be likely to cross other than a random grocery store encounter. I literally never run into her. </p>
<p>I have a new friend—who will now be NF—and she is re-entering the same profession of OF after years off being a stay-at-home-mom. NF vaguely knows OF just through work contacts from years ago, so when OF got a big promotion, she texted me to ask if I had heard about it. I hadn’t, but I said I was surprised. OF had never been particularly career driven and had worked part time all the years I knew her, but of course that can change. My NF I think was very curious since OF had obviously been less career focused in the early years and now had nabbed this plum position, and I think my NF was just wondering if that was an attainable goal for her now. So we’re texting back and forth, and at some point I sent part of a text saying,“honestly a little shocked because she was part time for a long time so I didn’t know she was on that track.” Except I sent it to OF instead of NF. This was last week, and I just noticed it today. I didn’t get a response. I feel like such a jerk, because I said all sorts of nice things about OF, but that fragment certainly makes it sound like I don’t think she deserved the promotion.</p>
<p>The really ridiculous thing is that yesterday I was thinking I should send her a card congratulating her. There was a blurb in the newspaper about the promotion. But now I feel like it would be an obvious ‘hey don’t be mad at me even though I was clearly talking about you behind your back and not sounding at all like I think you deserve the promotion.’</p>
<p>She’s a very gracious woman. I’m not worried that down the road we’ll see each other and she’ll be rude, but should I apologize? I can’t think how to word a card or phone call without it sounding like I’m making an excuse for myself. I really was shocked. This would be like someone you know being a part-time receptionist for years and then you lose touch for five years and now they’re CEO. Good for her! It’s awesome that she did it. </p>
<p>Should I reach out to her? Invite her to lunch? Send her a card?Just let it go?</p>
<p>LOL- I’ve accidentally texted the wrong person a time or two, but no faux pas!
You can give it a little time. If you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything… just yet. A card is a nice gesture. Is it possible she might have thought you were talking about someone else? I would not bring it up and apologize. She might have , as they say, “paid it no nevermind” so no need to bring it to the forefront.
Sorry for the OOPS!</p>
<p>It’s possible she doesn’t even have the same phone number anymore or maybe the phone now belongs to one of her kids. The problem is the friends have the same name, minus one letter. I had the same experience when texting my husband, Dan, and instead texted my Dad. It was a bit of a rant about being annoyed about something, and my dear old dad called me the next day and said,“Yeah, I don’t know what that was about, but I’m not going to be much help.” I now have my listeddad by his first name in my phone to avoid that problem—and because I’m having perimenopausal dementia, occasionally i will go to call my dad and panic because “Dad” isn’t in my phone anymore. This is why I don’t drink. Imagine the consequences if I did!</p>
<p>I’m not going to bring it up because I texted NF about it and she said she got the text too so, maybe my phone is just doing something screwy. Well, at least I’m not sending any nude pictures to anyone!</p>
<p>I agree - I wouldn’t say anything and just send a card. What you said doesn’t seem all that derogatory to me.</p>
<p>As an aside - I work for a company with 10,000 employees. When you go to Outlook to select an employee’s name the very first line is ‘send to all users’ - yep, all 10,000 of them. About once or twice a year some employee will unknowingly send out an email to all employees. One time, it was a very, very inflammatory email talking about one of our executives. Yikes! </p>
<p>First rule of emailing (and texting) is never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face. If I need to complain about someone I do it in person or via phone.</p>
<p>My son just texted his best friend telling him why he broke up with his GF of 2 1/2 years. Only problem was he sent it to the ex-GF. Guess she now knows exactly what went wrong. </p>
<p>Helenback, I don’t think your text was too inflamatory. Plus, it sounds like it could refer to NF, too.</p>
<p>I received an e-mail message from one of my employers recently. They announced they were paying John Doe $80 for a survery. Why then, were they offering me $15? Afterwards, I got at least 3 e-mail messages asking me to “disregard prior e-mail messages.”</p>
<p>Well, I have never texted the wrong person but i just got an iphone and I can see how it could easily happen with a smart phone. Just waiting to embarrass myself.</p>
<p>I had an incident once with an email. I sent an email out to a large group of parents about an idea for a fundraiser. This idea would have supplemented another fundraiser that was already in place. That fundraiser (the old one ) was run by “Carol and Sandy” who were very invested in it. After I sent the email about my idea, I got a reply from “Carol” saying “What do you think of THIS?”. I replied “What do I think of WHAT?” Well, she had intended to reply only to Sandy but had replied to both of us by accident. Apparently I was stepping on some toes! lol.</p>
<p>A friend of mine is prone to “pocket dialing” a lot. She is also someone who rarely says anything bad about anyone but, sure enough, she was complaining to a friend about another friend and realized later that she had pocket dialed the friend she was trashing just before she started her rant. Oops!</p>
<p>Yes, I have sent texts to the wrong person. I have an iPhone, and if you are receiving incoming texts from more than one person, it is very easy to respond to the wrong person. Fortunately, none of my mistakes was socially awkward. However, those mistakes sensitized me to the need to doublecheck who the text is going to before I hit the “Send” button.</p>
<p>At my job, a gigantic faux pas was committed by someone in our human resources office who mistakenly sent a long rant criticizing someone in the head office–TO THAT PERSON. It was pretty awful. </p>
<p>I would never send something like that in an email to begin with. It is too easy for such things to get forwarded to others–sometimes after several other messages have been “stacked on top” and the message on bottom is forgotten.</p>
<p>My 18-year-old DS accidentally texted me instead of his girlfriend. He was at a friend’s house and had been texting both of us, when I got a text that said “Okay, good night. Love you, babe.” Followed by another text that said “Oops! Sorry, Mom. That was supposed to go to Ashley.” :)</p>
<p>I send text messages using Google Voice on my computer. My hands are too fumbly to try to do it on a phone. I’ve never sent a text to the wrong person as you can name the person that you are sending the text to with Google Voice.</p>
<p>This is a fun, amusing thread. To the OP–What I would do is send a card with a note. In the note, I would say almost exactly what your text said. Something along the line of this: “I am so excited for you and your promotion. After working part time, I am sure that you are happy to be moving up.” I am sure that you can come up with something that would fit. It will make you feel better to get it off your chest even if you never see her again.</p>
<p>Forty years ago, my mother told me to never put anything in writing that I wouldn’t want the whole world to see. That advice is even more important today. It goes well with MomLive’s suggestion.</p>
<p>I recently married a couple that met through a misdirected text. The groom took a picture on his cell phone that he thought a friend of his would like, but hadn’t yet programmed his new phone. He sent it to the number he THOUGHT was his friend’s, but it wasn’t. The person who received it texted back saying she liked the photo (which was of a covered bridge) but didn’t know why he’d sent it to her. He texted back, and now they are husband and wife.</p>
<p>So wrongly sent texts aren’t always disasters…</p>