If You Ever Feel Guilty For Not Responding to Texts, Send This Article Instead.
We may all be human but we are all different creatures when it comes to how we integrate our social life.
I personally am a very social creature, but I have specific terms as to how I socialize.
I have been dubbed a “Highly Sensitive Person” which is a real thing and if you think you may fall into 20% of people who are, I highly suggest reading psychologist, Elaine Aron’s book ‘The Highly Sensitive Person’ (wow say “highly” one more time) But essentially as an HSP, I am easily overwhelmed and well, sensitive, and that goes for technology as well.
I intentionally always have my phone on silent because the alerts and even the vibration is far too frenetic for me.
Not that long ago at all, cell phones did not exist. Cell phones, or as I like to call them “Self Phones” have obviously immensely helped with emergencies and all around convenience, but they’ve also enabled our now instant gratification society.
Pre-texting, calling, instagramming etc., people still seemed to manage a social life. Maybe less convenient, but I assume much healthier. Our greedy, self absorbed, instantly gratified society has now made manipulating our mental health a societal norm. If I don’t respond to you right away, 9.5 times out of 10 it’s not personal to you, it’s personal to me. I usually am just not in the space to be on my phone or have the emotional capacity to respond at the moment. I also don’t ever recall signing an NDA that disclosed I MUST respond to you within a very small fraction of time.
And aren’t we all trying to work on our screen time anyhow?
To me, a good friend isn’t responding to you right away, it’s responding when they have the appropriate energy to devote full attention to you. A good friend on the receiving end, would also understand this.
Why do we want to give our friends anxiety? Why do we want the people we claim to care about to be stressed out because of our own “needs?” That’s not caring about someone. That’s caring about what someone can do for you.
My cousin who is also one of my best friends lives a full packed life and sometimes has a delayed response to my seemingly needy texts. I never take offense to it because… why should I? She always feels so bad for not responding no matter how many times I tell her not to. Sometimes I will jokingly pretend I’m butt hurt, but the complete unnecessary rise in blood pressure that we all get by feeling bad for not responding to someone right away is, like I said, COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.
“You must love yourself before you can love someone else.” “You can’t pour from an empty cup.” We hear, see and use these phrases all the time and yet why can’t we seem to allow others to do the same? Because our society has become innately so self absorbed.
If I don’t like your photo on instagram it’s not because I don’t “like” it, it’s because I probably literally did not see it. Why does my thumb tapping my screen for half of a second have any value of our friendship or what you mean to me? It doesn’t. I feel like many of us think that a single like from a person you had a fling with 6 months ago means they’ve been staring at the photo for 20 minutes, heart pounding, and drafting out the text they plan to send you in their notes app. Maybe that is true in some cases, but have you ever seen a dude scroll through instagram? It is the most mindless, robotic, boring thing to witness and probably has very limited meaning behind what their half a second thumb taps engage in.
We simply must do better on the receiving ends of expected texts as well as what we expect from our friends in general. Being concerned for your friend’s wellbeing and them not validating you with a response are two completely different things.
Tips on what to say if you are struggling to respond to a friend:
- Don’t! Unless it’s an urgent matter, it is perfectly okay to not get back to someone right away.
- “Hey, sorry I’m not in a place right now to discuss this, I’ll check back in soon!” (I had to use this a couple days ago, worked like a charm.)
- Do the automatic thumbs up/down, exclamation, “ha ha,” heart thing when you hold down the text. (I am not keen on these but they’re a pretty good way to kill the conversation and get the point across that you do not wish to engage any longer.)
- Send this article!
Tips on what to say if you’re concerned about your friend’s lack of response:
- “Hey I hadn’t heard back from you, just wanted to make sure you’re okay!”
- Create a safe word or emoji exchange with your said friend to imply you’re on the same page. ie: alpaca from sender means “you good?” alpaca back mean’s “I’m good!”
- Call them! If they don’t pick up, just leave a voicemail with comforting words. “Hey! Just wanted to check in to make sure you’re okay! You can just text me back if you don’t feel like talking.”
Ultimately, if you think you’re the friend expecting too much from your friend technologically, check in with yourself and make sure you’re in a balanced give and take relationship with your friend. Get to know your friend better, sometimes I wish mine would. When you dig a little deeper with your friend you might find out that they simply don’t do well with always feeling pressured to be on their phone. When you dig a little deeper, you may find that you have been asking too much of your friend in general. Or maybe you’re just a narcissist.
If you think you’re the friend that’s overwhelmed by needing to respond instantly to your friends, make clear boundaries for yourself. Let them know ahead of time or explain later. If they don’t understand then maybe it’s time to evaluate how much of a friendship you even have.
