You don’t have to share your number to get spam messages - I get weekly spam texts for “Susan” (not my name), which I never interact with but have been coming from random numbers for years.

Once your # is on a list, whether you put it there or not, it never leaves.

I’m the only one who has ever had this phone no., but if I were to swap now, 99% chance I’d get a reused number, which would probably come already loaded on a million different spam lists. There’s no winning.

This is 1000% not true.

1. They don’t care if you don’t answer. It costs them $0 to text you.

2. My profession makes me a target for a wide variety of advertising and my phone number is required by law to be listed publicly.

3. I already don’t. Mostly because Google Messages filters them in a way that I never even see them unless I’m actively looking. It was only when I got an iPhone that I realized exactly how horrific it is.