The Art of Texting: Health Educator Justine Ang Fonte on Leaving Stress, Anxiety Behind
Justine Ang Fonte uses her own experience in the dating world and with consent education to help strangers on the internet craft text messages that help them communicate more efficiently with dates, co-workers and family members.
Sending that perfect text doesn’t have to be so stressful.
That’s according to intersectional health educator Justine Ang Fonte.
“It’s my hope that I can help people wordsmith some phrases, some sentences or even an entire text message to help them set boundaries themselves.” — Justine Ang Fonte, health educator
She started the Instagram account _good.byes_, which offers templates and ghostwriting services for people struggling to navigate the dating world but also co-workers, bosses and other anxiety-inducing scenarios.
“I often get requests from followers saying, ‘I went on a couple dates with this person. They’re really nice, but I just don’t feel enough chemistry and I don’t know how to let them down without sounding mean,’” says Fonte, who recently penned an article on the art of communicating via text for Spectrum Journal.
“In that situation,” adds Fonte, “a lot of people decide to just ghost them and hope the other person gets the picture that they’re no longer interested. You end up with this disconnection between two human beings that can be really hurtful because of the lack of communication.”
Fonte says she ended up seeing a need for this service from her own experience with dating and her work in consent education.
Listen: Health educator Justine Ang Fonte on how to set boundaries and communicate better via text message.
“I have applied as a sex educator in the wild, if you will, a lot of my own consent education, which is very much the umbrella of boundary-setting,” says Fonte. “In turn, I’ve decided to create a service for people on Instagram that might struggle with setting boundaries with people in their life starting with their dating life.”
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