When one pretends to write a text message to someone, in hopes of avoiding unwanted and/or awkward situations.
NOTE: Although 'pretexting' is a portmanteau of 'pretending' and 'texting', the actual word 'pretext' shares a similar concept, as it is defined as "an effort or strategy intended to conceal something."
Person 1: Dude, every time I was leading on to ask Jill out, she would get a text from one of her friends. Isn't that weird?
Person 2: Bud, you do realize...
Person 1: *sigh.* She was pretexting, wasn't she.
Person 2: Sorry man. Hey, what say we go to Taco Bell?
Person 1: FUCK YEAH TACO BELL
Calling a telephone company or a financial institution and obtaining sensitive, personal information about a customer by deceiving the company into believing that you are that customer.
It was revealed that Hewelett Packard was spying on its board of directors and hired lawyers to obtain information on personal phone calls. The lawyers used pretexting to trick phone companies into releasing that information.