I was listening to a radio show recently and heard a thought which struck me as more interesting than the radio hosts fully appreciated: On the show, a woman was talking about a time when she had received a text message from her boyfriend - being busy, she had little time to respond, so replying with a short message she decided to finish off the message with a caring "I love you." She then commented about she later found out her phone actually had "I love you" as a preset text-message, making the sharing of affection only a few button presses away.

After sharing this humerous story with a friend, he let me know how he was once looking at all the shortcuts his carrier provided with text-messages, one of them being #386, which would send an "I love you message" to your desired recipient. That's 4 characters against the 10 in "I love you". As I see it, in terms of time-saving, the only way you can match the efficiency of #386 is with "Luvu" which sounds more like a kind of bath-soap rather than a message of affection.

It's an odd thought to think that expressing love is only a few button pushes away. I'm pretty sure Love is one of the harder feelings to express - Hatred being an easier feeling to show, and yet technology has made it increasingly simple for us. Not only does it make me wonder how long #386 will replace "I love you" in our vocabulary - but more importantly, how much easier is it for some to express their feelings with the more abstract use of numbers? Typing out those three words can be a lot more jarring to one who has trouble expressing that particular emotion - #386 is pretty effective as smoke and mirror.

I can practically hear the sob story now: "My dad never hugged me, or told me he loved me. But I knew he loved me, because he always sent me #386."

The real question that I'm stuck on is if #386 is truly an admission of love. I think it is. I imagine some would disagree and argue that if you truly love someone, you'll go to the pains of typing each individual character - including the spaces. My response is that that's not love - that is infatuation - to be stuck in the poetic whimsy of romantically burdening yourself with 6 extra characters when you don't need to, when the other person won't even know. True love is when you've become so comfortable with the other person that silly little romantic efforts of expressing love are recognized as a waste of time. True love appreciates the use of finding a more efficient way of expressing that love, and recognizes that sometimes one doesn't have the time for 6 extra characters.

The only danger with #386, is that #387 is "I hate you" - so you better be sure you hit the right button.