Text message sent to wrong person

There are two types of people in the world: a) people who have accidentally sent a text, iMessage or email to the wrong person at some point in their life and b) liars.

If you fall into the former category, you’ve also likely experienced the panic that comes with realising that your message has not gone to its intended recipient. Depending on how scandalous the material was, your anxiety levels probably vary from mild-moderate to ready-to-move-to-another-planet.

You have three options here: unsend (warning: this is not always available), own up to your mistake or lie through your teeth.

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Option 1: Unsend (if you can)

On some platforms (Gmail, Facebook messenger and Instagram, we’re looking at you) you can actually unsend messages which is really, really handy. For Gmail, you’ll need to update your settings in advance to use this function, and set a send cancellation period of five, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. For Facebook messenger and Instagram, simply select the message and hit unsend.

If you sent a text or iMessage that you regret, switch on airplane mode immediately, if not sooner!

Option 2: Own up to your mistake

Unfortunately, the worst-case scenario on this occasion is also one of the most common – and that’s sending an insulting message to the person you were talking about. Yikes.

The reality is that you both will know what happened, so you’re probably going to have to own up to your mistake, whether you like it or not. Lifehacker writer Lindsey Ellefson recommends approaching the mistake with radical honesty. For example, if you were caught bad-mouthing a coworker on Slack, Ellefson says you could try following up with, “Hey, Jill. I’m sorry about that. I am in a bad mood today, but I shouldn’t have insulted you or Scrappy (he’s adorable!). I’m finding it hard to concentrate today and your talking was distracting me, but that’s no excuse for being so rude.”

Option 3: Tell a white lie

Not ready to own up? You’re only human.

Now, this one's a bit of a stretch, so bear with us here, but you didn’t name any names in your message, you could also pretend that you were simply copying and pasting someone else’s message. Maybe your fictional friend Jimmy was bad-mouthing how difficult it is to cater for their vegan friend? And maybe you copied his message and then sent it to your vegan friend just to say how rude Jimmy is? Look, it’s a reach, but it might just be your only option.

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I accidentally sent a compromising message to the worst person possible!!! HELP ME.

Everyone has made this mistake – even the Greatest of All Time. Serena Williams’ pregnancy announcement on Snapchat was reportedly posted publicly by accident: “On social media, you press the wrong button and … ”

Messages are sent to the wrong recipients all the time, and mostly without consequence. But you don’t remember the blips in communication, the hilarious misunderstandings, the feelgood new connections. You remember the worst-case scenarios: nudes to a relative; a job application to your current boss. And that classic of the genre: a text unambiguously about someone, to that someone.

This is a mistake that many only make once. The dawning horror as you realise that – oh no, ohmygod, nonono – yes, you really did send that to them has to rank among the worst feelings technology is able to induce.

Your first impulse is to stamp on your phone, or some other impotent, violent form of damage control. It is also your second impulse when you realise it won’t make a jot of difference to the outcome.

Very nearly sent a very incriminating message to the wrong person. And there's my heart rate raised for the year

— Session Goth (@AgingEmoKid) December 11, 2014

i just came so close to sending a text to the wrong person and if i had sent it, i would have to leave this planet. that would have ended me

— ♡ (@RUNJlMlN) April 23, 2017

One woman told me she texted a man she was about to break up with: “Hang on I’m about to break up with him I’ll call ya later.”

One journalist owned up to emailing an interviewee with the subject line: “Why I hate [interviewee]”.

One man was sent a list, intended for payroll, of employees who were about to be made redundant – with his name on it (“I got an extra month of severance pay, which was nice”).

I’ve been told some scenarios that are pure farce. A political party listened in on an opponent’s conference calls for several months after call-in details were misdirected. A lawyer forwarded all of her case files to the opposing team. A government department mistakenly copied in a journalist.

One friend witnessed a dog she recognised from Instagram get hit by a car outside her house. She messaged her partner, “A dog just got hit by a car outside my house and I’m 99% sure it’s [x’s]”.

“At which point [x] called me, literally screaming,” she adds.

That everyone has a story like this reflects both the instantaneousness of digital communication and the absentmindedness with which we approach it.

You may not even realise your mistake until the person you meant to send the message to says they didn’t receive it (or you have a flurry of missed phone calls, as in Serena Williams’ experience: “I’m like, ‘That’s weird’”). Then there’s an awful, agonising moment of realisation.

Sometimes it’s easily brushed off with a quick “lol soz wrong window”.

And sometimes it isn’t.

Don’t worry – I’m not going to say “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”. I do suggest waiting to say it in person. Former Gawker writer Max Read’s account of witnessing a former colleague called on in court to explain a lame joke he’d made on chat is a modern-day parable.

The most obvious risk-mitigation strategy is to focus. The count-of-three I advocate before pushing send on nudes (sexy, I know) applies to any sensitive message: always check the recipient.

One day you’ll be glad you did.

Be especially careful not to confuse forwards, replies, and reply-alls, which is easily done, with embarrassing results. The same goes for attachments. I’m willing to bet no one is more scrupulous with their uploads than the girl who sent a Nicolas Cage headshot with her job application instead of her resume.

If you use Gmail, do this right now: enable “Undo Send” in settings. This allows you to select a window of between five and 30 seconds in which you can “cancel” a sent email. According to a Twitter search, this tool has enabled plenty of heart-in-mouth, come-to-Jesus near-misses.

There’s no such feature on other platforms but personalising them to look distinct from each other reduces your chances of posting in the wrong one. Click on the cog on the top-right corner of a Facebook chat window or Gmail inbox to change its colour or theme – perhaps road-cone, proceed-with-caution orange for your ongoing conversation with Mum.

It pays to keep your windows uncluttered, too; you’re less likely to post in the wrong chat if there aren’t several inactive ones open.

Take particular care to flag group chats, perhaps with a sprinkling of eye-catching emoji in the thread name. It’s easy to forget who you’re talking to, especially if some participants are more active than others.

But in a worst-case scenario, these silent partners are among the easiest to con. If they’re checking the thread only irregularly, you might be able to bury the incriminating message under an avalanche of text. Opening a group chat to 50-plus unread messages does not invite careful scrutiny of each one.

cause of death: embarrassment after messaging the wrong group chat 🙂

— hannah (@hannahveiga) April 15, 2017

As strategies go, it’s a desperate play, but these are the kinds of straws people reach for in such situations.

The mother of one of my friends once accidentally copy-pasted a sexy text into a WhatsApp chat she shared with her two daughters, and their grandmother. Three generations of women were digitally struck dumb by one’s reference to a naughty schoolboy.

“Mum begged my sister and I to flood the thread with messages so Grandma wouldn’t see it,” says my friend, with some glee. (They refused.)

If you’ve never made this mistake (well, perhaps not exactly this mistake), you’re on borrowed time. How you respond depends on what’s at stake – sometimes not very much.

A boy messaged me on Insta and told me I was attractive. A second later he sent me another message saying, "Sorry, nevermind. Wrong person."

— Jordan Caroline (@JordanOwens_) March 8, 2017

I JUST SENT SUCH AN UGLY SELFIE TO THE WRONG PERSON IM GOING TO CRY

— ʙʀɪ™ (@Pantophobiah) April 17, 2017

If you’ve confused subject with recipient, and have to interact with them again in future, I suggest: beg for forgiveness. Maybe grovel some.

Any elaborate – and it will have to be elaborate – scheme to evade the consequences will only compound them. Urging the recipient not to open the message will not work; neither will any attempts to intercept it.

One friend emailed scathing criticism of her boss to her boss. In a desperate, last-ditch bid to cover her tracks, she went into his office and successfully deleted it from his computer – only to notice it already printed out on his desk.

Miraculously, she got away with the inbox intrusion. She didn’t get away with having sent the email in the first place.

As cringe-inducing as these stories are, take heart from the fact that mistakes that make your skin crawl today will, with time, mature into great self-effacing anecdotes. Especially if it’s only your own privacy or embarrassment at stake, you can try to speed up the process by owning it.

On New Year’s Eve, John Marshall – a political journalist in the US with Talking Points Memo – inexplicably tweeted a link to a Pornhub video with the remark: “They did say targeting close associates.”

His 164,000 followers deduced he’d meant to paste a different link than “Angela & Strawberry”, and gleefully waited for him to realise and respond to his mistake.

Marshall eventually acknowledged it the following day, sharing an email he’d written to a journalist.

“I’ve always had intense admiration for people who find themselves in situations where they’re supposed to feel ashamed and run away and hide but just don’t ... because they don’t feel like there’s anything to be ashamed or embarrassed about.”

It was the closest I’ve seen Twitter come to a standing ovation.

What do you do if you send a text to the wrong person?

Can I delete a text I sent to the wrong person?

How common is it to send a text to the wrong person?

How do you say sorry for sending the wrong message?