I may be strong and independent, but there’s something about the new person in my life not texting me back that can seriously ruin my entire day. Here’s why I still hate when a guy doesn’t text me back:
- Sending a text takes two seconds. Seriously. t’s pretty much the opposite of a big deal. I text my friends on a daily basis about everything from plans to current TV obsessions, and I’m so used to being on my phone that texting a new guy isn’t something I even have to worry about finding time for. Even if a guy isn’t constantly staring at his screen, he can take the time out of his busy day to shoot me a quick reply.
- He definitely has his phone. It’s 2016. There’s no question that this guy has a phone on him at pretty much all times. So if he’s consistently not texting me back or is straight-up ghosting me, I’m not going to buy the excuse that he was just “away from his phone.”
- Texting is the new talking. A married family friend once joked that she never texted her boyfriends because they would do this old-school thing called dialing someone’s number and actually calling them. But today, texting is the new talking, and it’s how everyone communicates with their friends, family members, and love interests. If this is how everyone I know keeps in touch, why can’t this one guy text me? I doubt that he’s the outlier among literally every person I’ve met recently.
- It feels super weird. When a guy doesn’t text me back, it’s like nothing is going right in my world and never has. It sounds dramatic, but this is just the way that my mind works. It’s such a simple concept: you text someone and they respond within a legitimate time frame. When it doesn’t happen, I get anxious — this isn’t how things are supposed to work, and it messes with my head.
- He’s usually the one who texted me first. What’s even worse is when a guy that I just started dating texts me first… and once we’ve got a good conversation going, he totally disappears. Until the next time he randomly decides to hit me up, of course. This drives me crazy because, hey, it’s not like I was the one who started this whole thing. So why can’t he keep it going?
- I worry I’m getting ghosted. Of course some guys get busy and have jobs and lives and all that stuff, so it’s not always possible to text back right away. I get that. I do. But every time a guy takes a few hours to respond, even if it means nothing and there are legit reasons, I worry that he’s ghosting me. My dating past has made me paranoid that every time someone takes a little longer than normal to text me back, it means that he’s simply in the process of disappearing from my life.
- I have a life too. When a guy takes too long to respond to a simple text message, I get annoyed because I feel like he’s not respecting my time. It’s like he thinks that all I do is sit by my phone waiting for him to answer. I’d rather live my life and focus on other things instead of the fact that he isn’t responding, so it gets on my nerves when I feel like he doesn’t acknowledge that.
- It feels like a smack in the face. Texting may be no big deal when it’s with friends, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take some guts when messaging a guy you like. I’m always opening myself up to the possibility of never getting a response, and that can be a bit scary. So when I make myself vulnerable like that, it feels like that much more of an insult when a guy leaves me hanging for so long. It’s like he’s toying with my feelings when I finally got the courage to put myself out there.
- It makes me overthink things. I have to think I’m not alone in going a little crazy after a potential date didn’t text back. I always wonder what I did wrong or if he’s not replying to me because he’s with another woman. I know it’s not rational, but it’s really something I can’t control.
- It makes me insecure. I always think I’m a confident woman until I find myself staring at my phone for the hundredth time today wondering what’s going on. I hate feeling insecure, and I especially hate feeling insecure about a guy. Worrying about why a guy hasn’t texted back is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still suck.
