Hellobee Boards

I usually respond right away but I have friends who take weeks or never respond. It drives me a little crazy but whatever. These are people I know well enough to know it's not a snub, just who they are.

I try not to open texts when I am not able to reply to them, because once they are marked as read, I rarely go back and remember to look at them in a timely fashion. But if I have to open my phone for something else early in my work day and the text notification gets bumped, it can be five hours before I am without students and even have the opportunity to respond, and that's IF I remember that the text is there. Often I respond to things really promptly, but it is not unheard of for it to be several days, at least. I don't feel great when that happens, but I don't stress about it.

Usually right away, if I read something and don’t respond ASAP then I almost always forget to go back and respond. If I’m mid conversation and I stop responding or forget then I usually apologize.

Anywhere from a few seconds to weeks if I look at it and forget.... I always thought texts were more like “emails” and if it was super urgent I assume the person would call. I have a problem being obsessed with my phone like many of us but I do go through stretches of many hours without looking at it. Usually I respond within the day though since I tend to look through my phone at midnight before sleeping!

@lindseykaye: yes I totally depend on the grace of others and assume they understand my life is crazy lol! And I totally understand if someone doesn’t get back to me for days, weeks, even months haha!

I have to say if it is a deeper/sensitive conversation I think I do try to respond quicker.

@LadyDi: This is me. Usually it’s right away but sometimes it’s days (if it’s important or the middle of a convo right away). I have a friend that takes forever but she has 4 kids and one with special needs so it doesn’t bother me at all.

I am so underwater on life. If you send a check in type of message to say hi I can usually manage a reply. If I can answer a question quickly I will.

But if you want anything from me, especially if it’s to make plans, it takes me a long time to process. There’s too much calendar Tetris and childcare complexity in my life. Adding anything to the calendar that is not mandatory sends me down a rabbit hole of stress.

I am going through a condo sale, a merger at work, settling my family into our new house and community, and of course juggling a full time job plus three young kids. And my 18mo twins are going through a sleep regression and refuse to wean. I am barely sleeping and barely keeping it together.

My very best friends understand what it means to be extremely busy. And none of them have ever complained when I fall off the radar. Of course I give them the same space and grace. Everyone else can take their expectations and suck it as far as I am concerned. Mama has nothing left to give.

@cake2017: I hear what you’re saying, and honestly 15 years ago I would probably have felt the same way. But she’s either your friend or she’s not. And she either will prioritize you as much as she can, or she won’t. You should judge that rather than her immediate ability to respond in a timely manner. Real life in my opinion should trump electronic correspondence. If real life interrupts her in the middle of the text chain, well that it should be OK.

If I am texting with someone and I get interrupted, sometimes I don’t have a chance to get back to it until bedtime. And I just don’t always remember by then. It’s not personal. It’s just life. It is unreasonable to expect that you can dictate when someone should prioritize you over something else.

@cake2017: I will add that in a few cases I have deliberately faded people who have overbearing or unreasonable expectations of me.

And in certain cases I deliberately do not reply quickly all the time because I cannot afford to set the precedent. I know the individual will take a mile if given an inch. My mother is a good example. If I was available in real time via txt she would smother me. So I often pace my reply to be slow or just ignore because I can’t afford, logistically and emotionally, to be on call to her that way.

Of course if there is an emergency or an urgent issue that is different.

Didn't read all the replies but personally there are probably a few layers. Usually I try to respond right away, esp if it's family, or someone asking a question vs just chitchatting. Very generally, I think it's only polite to respond within 12 hours unless you were traveling, left phone somewhere, etc.

My biggest pet peeve is like, even if it's a text you need time to think about before responding like maybe planning a get together, at least reply and say got your text, let me get back to you or something. I don't like the excuse of "sorry didn't see your text for days!" and meanwhile I know 90% of the time you did...

So then that would go into the territory of needing to explore what is going on between you & that person.

BUT THEN I do totally understand sometimes people struggle with depression/anxiety and answering texts is a trigger. But then that's a whole other thing too!

I am 100% with you on how annoying it is to not get a response. I will usually text right back, my phone is next to me all day, at home it might take a bit for me to see it, but I'll respond right away, it's not like it takes long!

I have a friend who is horrible at texting back; but at this point I know its just her. She's also a hair dresser and we ended up going elsewhere so we don't have to deal with her lack of response. We would probably be better friends if she wasn't so horrible to communicate with!
One of my sister's is the same, she has no good excuses, she just doesn't respond.

@Litebrite: if you figure that out post it!

@cake2017: i would totally leave it for this friend of yours who isn’t replying. I would feel resentful if I kept texting and never getting a reply so I would drop it and see if they ever got back to me. If not, byeeee.

As for people being busy: we are ALL busy ALL the time and I agree with you there. It becomes like this weird ‘busy olympics’ of who has the most going on at any given time and can’t text or email ever. I always find that I get annoyed when people use it as an excuse because it minimizes allllll the crap I’m also going through. But I can and will take 10 seconds to reply if someone asks me something. If I can’t give the answer of a date or time or something, I will at least acknowledge that I got their text and set a reminder to check into it later and get back to them. Maybe it’s weird but I treat texts as if someone I personally know and care about was asking me this thing in person: what would I say? Probably ‘oh thanks for asking, let me get back to you’ not just stare at them blankly and run away without saying anything Emails to me are way less personal and I feel get a 24-48 hour response window.

Wow this thread has been a bit enlightening. Hmm. Before texts, if I needed to ask a friend a random question, I'd call her. If she was in the midst of getting a kid to sleep, cooking dinner, etc., she'd let it go to voicemail. I'd know that she'd call me back when she could. I wouldn't think it rude unless some crazy amount of time went by. I'd understand that it wasn't a great time for her to jump on the phone. I guess we'd call that grace now, but somehow it just felt like common sense "back then"...? So why is it that we were more apt to extend this grace to each other then but now we demand that because *I* keep my phone by me 24/7 *you* should too? I say all this more in "thinking aloud" than anything else. I tend to answer texts pretty quickly, but I do put off replying if I'm in the middle of work or putting aside my phone to be really present with my family, and honestly, I expect my friends to respect this, just as I do/would for them. If they need something important, they'll call.