The Real Reasons A Guy Isn’t Texting You Back, According To A Guy

We all know how crucial texting can be early in relationships, and we guys do know how frustrated women get when we don’t text you back, at least not right away. You might come up with your own theories on our silence, but here’s the real truth.

  1. We’re afraid of endless follow-up texts. Look, it’s well established that women like to text more than men. Sometimes we just don’t want to deal with a barrage of texts coming at us that we have to read and respond to. If we answer one, we’ll have to answer the rest; it’s an endless cycle that we don’t want to start right now. To prevent that from happening, we simply decide not to text back.
  2. We’re trying to teach you a lesson. No offense, ladies, but you don’t always text back right away either. If you’ve done this to a guy in the past, he may want to do the same thing to you. Yes, it’s a little childish and vindictive, but sometimes that’s just how we roll.
  3. We don’t want to hurt your feelings. Do you really want us to reject you face to face or receive a text letting you know that we’re just not feeling it? Sometimes ghosting is the best way to let someone down easy. To be fair, you shouldn’t assume a guy is ghosting you if he doesn’t text back right away, but it’s possible—and rest assured, it’s for your own good.
  4. You’re coming on too strong. Why don’t you look back at the text the guy is ignoring. Is it possible you’re coming on too strong? Are you trying to push the relationship to a place it shouldn’t be? Are you assuming a guy is ready to be your boyfriend before he is? If you come on too strong, most guys will try to pull away by ignoring your texts. Yes, this is immature and not a great way to handle the situation, but sometimes it’s our way of pumping the brakes.
  5. You didn’t realize it was a one-night stand. Unless you’re new to one-night stands, you should be able to recognize one when it happens. Even if you exchanged numbers, if a guy thinks your night together is a one-time thing, he’s not texting back. Sorry if you thought it could turn into something more but it’s not happening.
  6. We want to pretend it didn’t happen. If we’re not a fan of what you said in the text, we may prefer to act like we never got it. To be fair, this is tough to get away with nowadays, but we may try to do it anyway. If you ask later, we’ll just say we never got it or perhaps we accidentally deleted all of our texts. If a guy ever feeds you this kind of line, there’s probably a 90% chance that it’s BS.
  7. You’re over-texting. We know you ladies love to text, but we guys don’t like to do it quite as much. It’s on you to make sure you’re not scaring a guy away by over-texting. We don’t want to encourage your love of sending too many messages and we don’t always want to just “check-in” with you, so we sometimes ignore your texts to try to curb it. Doesn’t work, does it?
  8. You asked an open-ended question. You ladies are a crafty bunch—yes, that’s a compliment. You sometimes text us an open-ended question in which you’re just fishing for us to say the right thing. The guys who are smart enough to catch onto this may choose to not answer your text. For example, don’t ask what we’re doing on Tuesday, just ask us what exactly you want us to do with you on Tuesday. If you can’t be upfront, don’t send the text. Is that so hard?
  9. The text you sent was all in emojis. Some form of a smiley face is fine and easy enough to interpret, but any other text that’s only filled with emojis is unacceptable. You might as well tell a guy not to return the text. The fact is that most guys don’t know what these emojis mean, and if we don’t know what they mean, we don’t know how to respond. Most of the time, guys who don’t return texts are the jerks, but this one’s on you, ladies.
  10. We’re being “less available.” Yes, this is a game we’re playing. I’m not condoning it, but it’s something that guys are going to do. If we’re not sure where we stand with you or we’re worried you’re pushing us to the friend zone, we may ignore a text or two. Again, this is immature and stupid. However, we just want to make you sweat a little bit so that you start to want us a little more and are willing to make more of a move. I’m not saying it’s a smart strategy, but it’s simply one of the better ones men have come up with so far.
  11. We’re thinking about the perfect response. Once again, you ladies have to keep in mind that most men are not natural texters. We don’t always know the right way to respond. There are times when we want to put a little thought into the best way to answer your text. You’ll just have to be a little patient with us.
  12. We’re busy. Last but not least, we have the simplest explanation of them all. We have jobs, hobbies, friends, family, and a lot of stuff to do. Maybe we’re at the movies or our niece’s recital. You ladies have to remember that we’re not waiting by our phones 24/7 just in case you text us. Most of the time, the reason why a guy isn’t texting you back is that he’s busy at the moment. So stop freaking out and getting angry over nothing. Just be patient and we’ll get back to you at some point. If not, it’s probably one of the 11 reasons listed above.
Bryan Zarpentine graduated from Syracuse University and lives in upstate New York, where he writes largely about the world of sports. His work has appeared on Franchise Sports and WSN, among others. You can find him on Twitter @BZarp.
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