Sometimes, in the whirlwind of our lives, people text us and we either forget to respond or we make up an excuse for not responding. To be fair, the recipient of your text could be operating a motor vehicle, in a meeting at work, at work, or perhaps flying an airplane. In any of these situations, their lack of response is completely and utterly reasonable.
No text is worth dying for and very few are worth risking one’s own career. There are, of course, a multitude of exceptions and anyone of you could bring up one of those “But what if…” situations—but what if I told you that I can’t account for every possible one of those that may or may not come up? It is an unlikely and impossible demand for me to acquiesce to (yes, that word from “Pirates of the Caribbean”). So instead, I will try to provide other rationale in a non-list form, borrowing of course from my previous article and knowledge about texting and why millennials don’t always respond to you.
I think that in a way it all goes back to the idea that we don’t want to seem needy or desperate, being taught through osmosis and cultural stimuli that to show true emotion is something to be inherently embarrassed about. Crying in public, for example, is seen as some sort of cultural taboo because it shows that, not only are we vulnerable, but that we are helplessly vulnerable. We aren't immune to our surroundings but we are taught to act as if we are.
That speaks to a cultural problem with human expression, which is beyond the reach of this simple Odyssey article. We don’t text back because texting back means that we are interested in what the other person has to say. This hinges on the text being one of those few texts that actually have some sort of underlying meaning. If you text someone asking about pizza and they don’t respond, it could very well be that they are just busy and can’t get back to you. But that is subjective depending upon who you are texting. Because if you text your crush asking about pizza and they don’t respond, you’ll probably code it as them lacking interest in you and then you’ll have to return to a Netflix binge of the "Gilmore Girls," crying into a bucket of fried chicken and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. If you’ll excuse me, I need a tissue to… uh, blow my nose.
Not answering a text could also be a power play. By refusing to answer a text that you know contains some meaning, you are asserting yourself as the person who creates and drives the conversation. Much like ignoring someone’s comment in a personal conversation (how terrifying does that sound?) and changing the subject relegates that person to a participant rather than the one commanding the conversation. It works in a similar way in texts.
I do have to admit that it is funny how I keep using other forms of expression or communication to metaphorically explain the multiple problems of texting. This article could be inherently flawed.
Meta-paragraph aside, by not responding you exert some sort of control over the situation. The only way for the initiating party to continue to reach you is by either sending another text or resort to calling you or approaching you in person. With texting operating in that “safe space” I described in the preceding article, not responding forces the other party to move outside of the “safe space” into the “danger zone” (eagerly awaiting a Cease and Desist letter) where emotions can suddenly become intricately involved. And we all know that emotions are the exact reason why we revert to texting as a form of communication.
By forcing them to revert to one of those primitive, emotional kinds of communication, you gain some sort of inherent knowledge of them. Or you think you do. (Let’s be honest I haven’t even accounted for the fact that people lie. The thing about people is that they are resistant to most types of theorizing). If the person texts you again you can infer a similar set of ideas: they obviously want/need to speak with you so badly that they are willing to seem desperate.
So here is another flawed theory about millennials. In a word, most of the conclusions I’ve reached could be seen as unreasonable. As a result, I must return to Netflix. I’ve heard that a wedding could be afoot.
