This is Why Your Friends Are Still Not Texting You Back
and why you shouldn’t take it personally
Now that almost the entire world is in a state of isolation and at home 24/7, there has been a rise in tweets and passive-aggressive Instagram quotes about how this is a “time to see who truly values you”. This follows the logic that people have no reason to be “too busy” to not message back instantly because after all, everyone is free now and should have all the time in the world.
Even before we began this isolation period, I had recently noticed a particular pattern with many of my friends. I would often send a text checking in on them, sharing news, or asking to make plans, and I wouldn’t get a response until many hours, or even days, later.
When I was younger, this would have sent me down a dramatic spiral of overthinking and overanalyzing what I did wrong and why they don’t love me. I would have been so upset that I would send some passive-aggressive text to show how hurt I was and to make them feel guilty. I would have taken it so personally as if their one and only task in life was to give me attention and nothing else.
Some people just aren’t as constantly connected or dependent on their phones
To understand other people’s texting habits I had to reevaluate my own as well as my relationship with my phone in general. I have a dependency on my devices, and it took me a while to recognize that not everyone is as connected as I am at all times.
Not everyone else carries around their phone everywhere and refreshes their social feeds once a minute, I found that out when I was in college and was horrified to find out my roommate leaves the dorm without her phone sometimes. I couldn’t go to the kitchen without carrying mine. Even now while we are all in isolation, I’ve noticed my family’s different ways of engaging with their phones.
Unplugging is healthy
We’re now at a time when we not only have access to the magnitude of knowledge around us, we also have the horrors of the world at our fingertips. Being online is overwhelming. When you’re connected, you can’t filter out what connects to you.
There is so much negative stimulus online and within our current interpersonal relationships, that at any moment you can pick up your device and see something new about the world being on fire, or a conversation in the group chat titled “The end of the world as we know it”. It is a completely natural response to decide to unplug from that.
Sometimes disconnecting is the best thing you could do for your peace of mind, and if you truly appreciate someone, you will not be upset at them for caring for themselves.
Not every text needs an urgent response
Whenever one of my friends would disappear for days and then come back, they wouldn’t act like the conversation was fresh, they wouldn’t pretend like I sent that “How’s your day going” somehow meaning three days into the future and respond with “My day’s been good!”.
No, my friends would acknowledge that they were having a rough couple of days. That they needed to unplug. That they do wanna know my big news! they do want to see me! They’d love a video call soon, they just need a little break.
This is how I know I’ve been blessed with great friendships; they know themselves enough to care for their well-being, they appreciate me enough to be honest with me, and they value the friendship enough to communicate.
I think it’s very easy to centralize ourselves and our feelings in these situations and to lose sight of the bigger picture. Yes, some people truly are horrible at texting back, and yes, some people really might be blowing you off, but communicating your need for communication is how you get your peace of mind.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt instead of internalizing their actions as an offense towards you will only give you peace, and opening up a conversation is always a better alternative than making assumptions.
