What happened when we messaged our 'text door neighbour'.

Remember the ice bucket challenge? Celebrities chucking freezing water over friends? Stunned, rictus-mouthed gasps in the name of a good cause? Something like this:

Now there’s a new kid in town – the ‘text door neighbour’. It’s simple: you text the mobile number that’s just one digit from your own (‘text door neighbour’ – geddit?). Then you wait to see what happens. Sure, you’ve just sent your number to someone who could turn out to be a crazy. But hey, New Year and all that.

Now, the text door neighbour trend is being described as ‘the latest way to make new friends”; a “craze that’s sweeping the internet” and “a handy way of meeting new people”.

So we gave it a shot.

This is how it went down:

How Shayni felt: “I can see they’ve read it and they’re not replying and it’s giving me anxiety.

“I’m sure they’ll still get back to me. They’re probably having a crazy day at work. Or their phone died. Or they’re, you know, very very elderly and don’t know how to reply but desperately want to.

“It’s definitely not that I freaked them out.”

“But his name is Greg, so I’m sure it’s fine. I mean, Greg is a pretty innocuous name, right. RIGHT?”

Amy: “I’ve been ignored.” (sorry Amy – but can you blame them. WHAT IS THAT PICTURE???).

Annie: “I never liked them anyway.”

It could have been worse. We could have got replies like these:

Verdict: It’s no ice bucket challenge. But if it spread a bit of New Year feel goods, why not?