Jana Hocking reveals the one thing every girl has in her Notes app

Jana Hocking has pulled back the curtain on a guilty habit that most women have in common - but would never own up to.

Warning: I’m about to share something highly confidential in the female world.

It’s embarrassing, slightly bonkers, but 100 per cent true. In fact, I’m very confident that I’m not the only female who does this. (I know, because every woman I asked confirmed my theory).

You see, the Notes app on our phone is home to all types of sordid details, but there is one specific type of draft text message that every woman has stored in there (and agonised over) at some stage in their dating life.

It’s top secret – but not today, dear reader. Because I am pulling back the curtain, as it were, to reveal exactly what we’ve typed up … and it’s not good for you lads. Not good at all.

Let me set the scene for you.

It’s 1am and you’re tossing and turning in bed, with your phone’s glow the only light in your room, furiously typing away on your Notes app. Not drafting the next big novel or grocery list – but crafting the perfect break up text.

Yes, break up text. Because you can’t just be sending those kind of texts off without a good deal of drafting, editing and re-reading. You want to get them just right.

It sounds a little ridiculous, and pretty darn dramatic, but for many of us, it’s a very real midnight ritual.

Recently, while I was battling my own dating drama and contemplating sending an “It’s not you, it’s me” message (although it was DEFINITELY him), I had an epiphany.

The Notes app on our phones is home to a secret vault of unfinished break ups, what if scenarios and emotional exorcisms.

What is it about those little texts that we can’t quite bring ourselves to send, yet feel compelled to draft?

For me personally, I find them really cathartic. It’s jotting down all my angry thoughts without actually ranting at my current partner.

‘At 1am, everything seems far more dramatic than it actually is’. Picture: Instagram/@jana_hocking

‘Nine out of 10 times you will read the draft the next morning and realise you sound like an absolute loon’. Picture: iStock

At 1am, everything seems far more dramatic than it actually is. And that unanswered phone call or sassy comment about your outfit can be replaying in your head over and over again until you’ve worked yourself up into a total tizz, and have decided, nope, it’s time to end things.

The crazy thing is, nine out of 10 times you will read the draft the next morning and realise you sound like an absolute loon, the problem really isn’t that deep and praise the heavens above that you only drafted it, and didn’t send it.

But go looking through any woman’s phone and you will find a batsh*t crazy draft text just like the one I almost sent last week.

In fact, while scrolling through my phone I found three of them, all from various dating endeavours over the last few months and years.

Jana Hocking's Notes app hides a secret most women will relate to.

Oh god, one even included a Gandhi quote.

And here’s another secret I shouldn’t be sharing … often we send those draft texts to friends to get their opinion on whether we should send them.

They are always sent in the early hours of the morning because a dating existential crisis far outweighs the importance of sleep. Wake up dear bestie, there’s drama to be solved.

Most times you will wake the next morning to a “NO! DO NOT SEND THAT” text from your pal who will also inform you that you sound nuts.

But here’s a question … if you’re constantly writing out draft break up messages in your Notes app, is it a big ol’ red flag that this dude is not your forever person? Like, if you’re consistently tossing and turning late at night highly peeved about something he’s done, then maybe we should be sending those texts.

Since I’m in the mood for oversharing, here are some other things you will find in a girl’s Notes app:

● Names of the men she has shagged.

● Names of the men she wants to shag.

● Baby names – I’ve got a list and I don’t even want my own kids.

● Business ideas.

● A list of sad movies to watch when she needs a good cry.

● Porn links to particularly good content that you know will do the job, if you know what I mean. What? It can’t just be me …

So let’s be honest, if Instagram is the place we go to show off the best parts of our lives, the Notes app is where you’ll find our true selves. The part of us that has meltdowns at midnight, the part of us that needs reminders of who we’ve slept with, and the manifestation lists that include everything from the dream wedding to the home with a view of the ocean.

So, dear best friend, should I ever find myself in a tragic incident, please find my phone, stomp on it a million times and throw it deep into the sea.

No one should ever see what’s in my Notes section. No one.

Jana Hocking is a columnist and collector of kind-of-boyfriends | @jana_hocking

Originally published as Jana Hocking reveals the one thing every girl has in her Notes app