Why Aren’t They Responding!?! They See It And Plan to Respond, Eventually— Needy AF #3 (2 of 3)

Some people wouldn’t take a picture of this

Take Home Point — There are people who always leave the cookies in the oven a little too long, take forever to shop for a pair of shoes, and take their sweet ass time responding to a text. These are people for whom life is too distracting, too full of options, or too complicated to be timely in their communications. You can’t fix them, you can only figure out how to work with them.

Actions to Take —

• If you are on “read” and get no response in the timeframe you desire, you MUST let it be. Not all your relationships are going to be as consistent with replying as you are. Give it time or you’ll be seen as pushy. And if they are playing games, let them play them alone.
• If you can’t tell you’ve been “read” and get no response in the timeframe you desire, you MUST still let it be. Give it time or you’ll be seen as pushy. And again, if they are playing games, let them play them alone.
• Work on your expectation management. If it is super important, call and leave a message; otherwise texting and emails, to many people, are considered low priority things to respond to. Match your expectations to the priority.
• It’s not that the response is slow, it’s our perception of why it’s slow that drives us up a wall. It can be extremely difficult, but you have to not engage in catastrophic thinking.

Why They Don’t Respond

Logically we can determine there are three major categories of “lack of response”.

• They have not seen the communication (See Link to # 1 of 3)
• They have seen the communication but haven’t yet responded
• They have seen the communication and do not plan to respond

It doesn’t get more basic than this, they have either not seen it, seen it but slow to respond or they aren’t going to respond.

They have seen the communication but haven’t yet responded

There is probably nothing more disconcerting to a Needy Person than having sent a text or left a message and KNOWING (via read receipt or similar) they’ve seen it but haven’t responded. It really gets our “Catastrophizing” gears into motion doesn’t it? Since you know they’ve seen it then there must be a reason they aren’t responding and that ugly little homunculus in your brain decides that it is you that must be the reason. Neediness is insidious as its roots tap deep into your insecurities about yourself. The simple act of someone not IMMEDIATELY replying begins to eat away at your self worth and you begin asking questions such as — Why doesn’t anyone like me? I guess we were never friends? They are punishing me for something I might have said 2 months ago! It goes on and on.

The Faulty Thinking Chain goes something like this: “Should” have responded -> “Jump to Conclusions” about why -> “Personalizing” or “Catastrophizing” the conclusion you jumped to.

They “should’ve” responded immediately since they had the time to read it in the first place. Since they didn’t respond, you “Conclude” they must have a reason to not respond, and then you “Personalize” it by assuming the reason must be you or that something terrible has happened — “Catastrophizing”.

I think there are three ways to think of the Read and Delayed Response Behavior seen in relationship communications.

• They are playing a “game”
• They got distracted
• They aren’t sure what to say yet

They Are Playing a Game. Sad, but some people think that relationships should be gamified. They use communication strategies to maintain some level of control over the relationship. This, I think, is more common in non-platonic relationships but not always. In this case, they are choosing to delay response in order to elicit some type of response out of you. Here’s a few I could think of…

• They keep “score” or know you want/need a response and feel that they can take their time to respond as a power play.
• They are a “Rules” dater/friend and believe that waiting to respond sends a message that you have to work for their relationship.
• They are upset/angry about something and instead of talking to you about it, they make sure you see it was read but not responded to. They know it may drive you to re-contact them giving them the means to control you.
• They’ve had too much texting from you (or anyone really) and to control your habits they refrain from responding rapidly. To train you to wait.
• They have multiple offers to do something and waiting to see if others go through before turning you down.

Regardless of the reason, games are childish ways of communicating with people. The goal is to manipulate some type of response from you; and being the needy person you are they know you will react. It can be very, very hard to not give in because you are afraid if you don’t play the game you’ll be dropped as a relationship. But it’s a risk you have to take because solid relationships are not built on playing games. So if you suspect a “game” is being played, it’s imperative to not engage in it.

• Don’t check-in, wait. If it’s important, call. Someone playing a game may ignore the call as well.
• Don’t ask if everything is ok, wait. If things are ok, they still may delay response as part of the game. If things aren’t ok, they’ll let you know.
• Don’t send the question mark — “?” — if a response is delayed. For one thing, it’s passive-aggressive and secondly, it lets them know they got under your skin. Avoid at all costs.
• If no response is forthcoming after a few days, you should probably drop it. Since you were able to wait a few days, it’s likely not an important message. Communicate some other time about some other thing. It’s not a game to ignore the game.

They got distracted. Imagine this scenario. Your Mom is at your little sister’s soccer game. There is a lull in the action, so she pulls out her phone and sees she has 3 text messages, one from you! She reads them over. One is about some purchase she made on Amazon and it is been shipped. The other is from her sister asking about when she’s coming to visit that summer and then yours wanting to know if you left a book on the kitchen table. She responds to her sister and as she’s starting to respond to yours, your sister breaks out of the pack and kicks in a game winning goal! How exciting! She jumps up with everyone else to celebrate. After things settle down she continues to watch the rest of the game. In all the commotion, she’s just forgotten to respond to your quotidian request.

The key to handling these types of issues is that sometimes, it’s not their fault. People are easily distracted…what my brother terms the “sparkly and gold” syndrome. A lot of people, when their concentration is broken by something “sparkly”, get distracted and simply forget to come back to what they were working on. Like absentmindedly setting their keys down, they’ve set down the thought of responding and now don’t remember where it is anymore. In severe cases, it makes them difficult co-workers, difficult students, difficult parents, and difficult friends.

I think there is a touch of the “The Fairness Fallacy” thinking that goes on here. The person forgot they were going to respond to you because they got distracted. It upset you because it doesn’t seem FAIR. Your BF was just about to make your day by sending a “Like” to your text, but the nurse called her name in the waiting room and she forgot. It’s not fair the universe conspired to prevent your friend from performing the communication action that would’ve allowed you to feel connected for a few more hours or days. Sound familiar? What can you do about this since you simply can’t control the universe? Well, these actions should seem similar!

• Don’t check-in, wait. If it’s important, call. If they truly forgot, they’ll pick up or answer your message.
• Don’t ask if everything is ok, wait. If things are ok, they’ll respond eventually. If things aren’t ok, they’ll let you know.
• Don’t send the question mark — “?” — if a response is delayed. It’s passive-aggressive. Avoid at all costs.
• If no response is forthcoming after a few days, you should drop it. Since you were able to wait a few days, it’s likely not an important message. Communicate some other time about some other thing.

They aren’t sure what to say yet. As amazing as it may sound to Needy People, sometimes people don’t respond immediately because they aren’t sure what to say yet. Maybe the communication is charged with emotion and they are trying to carefully choose their words. Maybe they just learned something from your voice message that they need time to sit with. Maybe you’ve asked for detailed information they don’t have handy. Maybe they know they will accidentally tell you something they promised someone else to keep secret so they delay until after the secret is out. Maybe they are shy or introverted or overwhelmed and simply need time to mentally prepare a response. Maybe they saw the text at 11 PM and are too tired to respond until in the morning. As you can see, though, all these reasons have NOTHING to do with you and everything to do with the responder!

So is there anything you can do to deal with relationships where they don’t respond immediately cause they don’t know what to say? I’m glad you asked…

• Don’t check-in, wait. If it’s important, call. If they truly need time to respond, they will eventually respond, they just may need more time than you think. It’s a reflection on their capacities at the moment and not on you personally.
• Don’t ask if everything is ok, wait. If things are ok, they’ll respond eventually. If things aren’t ok, they’ll let you know. Asking “Are you ok” follow-up questions like this sends the message you are inpatient and they need to hurry it up, which they simply can’t do.
• Don’t send the question mark — “?” — if a response is delayed. It’s passive-aggressive. Avoid at all costs.
• If no response is forthcoming after a few days, you should drop it. Since you were able to wait a few days, it’s likely not an important message. Communicate some other time about some other thing.

You’ll note the actions to take from each of the potential scenarios are essentially the same. And that is because you don’t know the reason for the delayed response and acting as if you do is a distortion of thinking — like reading minds or overgeneralization. Based on your experiences, you believe you are sure of what’s going on. That’s just a bad policy to have as a friend or parent.

In truth, people's lives have many unseen complications and challenges and sometimes these are reflected in their undependable communications. So the best way to handle the uncertainty is with actions that allow the responder an out. If they are playing games, being cool and not taking the bait shows them that you are a friend and not a competitor on Wheel of Fortune. For the absent-minded, these actions allow them to not feel bad or blamed for their oversight. And for the ones who aren’t sure what to say yet, it gives them the space to collect their thoughts.

Note: If you feel you are being actively abused, know that abuse from others is NEVER ok and should not be tolerated. If you are feeling suicidal, do not finish reading this but instead immediately contact a friend, family member or trusted counselor and let them know. If that is not possible contact the National Suicide Hotline: 1–800–273–8255. You can’t depend on others to fix you, but they can find help for you…let them.