Lady Jonathan Tells All, #10
“You will feel “lesser-than” if you keep texting without replies.”
Dear Lady Jonathan,
Why won’t he text me?
Love,
Cracked Screen
Hi Cracked,
What you are experiencing is a common emotion amongst members of today’s society. You compose a cute, non-threatening note (often with the input of several friends, both male and female), send it out into oblivion, aim it at some hot dude, and then check your phone every 10 minutes for a week. There are thousands, if not millions of people who will have checked their phone for a text at least 8 times before they are finished reading this.
I can assure you this used to be worse. In the Bronze Age, you would have had to use a phone to CALL this guy and decide if you should leave a voicemail or not on his answering machine. This machine had an actual tape in it. You got one shot to either sound casual and cool and sexy (not overly sexy) or you left tangible proof that you are a nervous, insecure, snooze-fest. You could set the power dynamic for the entire relationship in 30 seconds and there was no “to erase this message and record again, press 3.”
There was no caller ID, which was great for obsessive people! You could call the guy over and over until he answers the phone. People’s assumption skills were more heightened at the time, so sometimes they would know that it was you calling, regardless. (Kind of like when people can tell who it was that hacked their email and read every message from the last four years, including even the most banal chats.)
As you can see, texting can kind of relieve pressure. You can edit and re-edit your message before sending, and you can tell yourself that the person not responding may have not gotten the text, because their phone was buggy. You can also send messages at all hours of the night, whereas calling someone’s house at 1am to say “are you around,” was super creepy. Do you realize how much easier it is to get last-minute-laid?
One important thing in wondering why he hasn’t texted you is to not feel like it is because you are not worthy of texting.
If he isn’t texting it is definitely not because you are too fat, smell badly, didn’t wax your vagina or balls, aren’t smart enough, would embarrass him in front of his friends, are totally uninteresting, are worthy of being tossed in the garbage and forgotten about, aren’t as attractive as the other girls/boys you were with, aren’t worthy of respect (okay maybe this one), didn’t wear the right shoes when you last saw each other or because you should have said you liked a different genre of music the most.
The MOST important thing in this situation is to remember that you are in complete and total control of how often you text this non-responder. DO NOT TEXT AGAIN. DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR POWER.
You will feel “lesser-than” if you keep texting without replies. I recommend matching the pace of the person you are texting. If they respond the day after you message, you wait a day to respond too. Speaking from experience, it’s so annoying when you haven’t even had time to reply to someone yet and you look down to find even more texts. Worse still, is when they text you telling you reasons why you must have not texted and these reasons imply they are not "good enough" for you or your valuable attention. For example, “I guess you are too busy to text me back,” or “Sorry to have bothered you, I thought you wanted to hang,” or “Okay, I get it, I will stop texting.” Man, that is so annoying.
Look into your phone and repeat: I AM IN CONTROL OF HOW MANY TEXTS I SEND. Repeat until it sinks in.
So on to your question, Cracked. Why won’t he text you? Who knows. There could be a million different reasons! Here is a list of possibilities:
He’s afraid of having to set a date to hang out because his schedule is overwhelming him.
He’s dating someone else and it looks like it might get more serious.
He met you when he was trashed and is embarrassed, having no real memory of what a buffoon he could have been.
His career means more to him than human relationships.
Just before you texted, he got a text that he got a babe pregnant.
He’s recently been diagnosed with a serious STD and doesn’t know how to navigate dating with this new factor.
He’s an asshole.
He can’t spell.
He knows he’s not good enough for you.
He’s really into his band and can’t be “distracted” while writing hits
He HATES texting.
A family member has fallen ill and he is on a jet plane to the Midwest.
He’s of the opposite persuasion.
He was super attracted to you but once he got home, he realized you are way too much like his ex and he is trying to break the cycle.
He’s an investment banker.
He’s being stalked and just seeing a text makes him cringe.
I mean, it could be anything!!! We literally have NO IDEA!
Also, it’s kind of like, who cares? If texting is important to you, and this person is not doing it, they are not right for you. I love texting. I enjoy dating people who like to text. I find people who don’t like to text to be a bit boring. Oh, let’s add that to the list of possibilities—he’s boring.
What does an animal have to say about this? Let me draw a card.
LOL Those silly animals!
I drew a blank shield. I guess the animal kingdom really has nothing to offer us by way of texting advice. The animal kingdom thinks texting is ridiculous. They also can’t believe we wax our vaginas or hand paper back and forth to each other for doing lots of work and pretending that paper defines our worth as animals. Animals are like, look, I’ve got this entire field to graze before real life predators emerge in the dusk hours and stalk me and my babies so whatever with texting. “The world is beautiful,” they say. “Why are you staring at that small piece of metal all freaking day,” they say. “Let’s all prance through the Conifers and smell wild flowers and sunbathe and then raid some asshole’s garden,” they suggest. “The stars! The glorious and majestic stars!” they gasp.
They are of course, right.
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