It’s 6 p.m.—the day after—and I haven’t heard from you… yet. (I say yet because I’m still holding out hope. You still have a chance! Text me back and you’ll change my mind completely; I’m sure of it.) I sent you a message last night around seven. (Maybe you didn’t get it. That’s the only explanation for your lack of response.) I wanted it to be something simple because I didn’t want to confuse you, or myself, about the intentions of the text, and I certainly didn’t want to look too eager to communicate. So I sent a very calm, cool, and collected: “The Empire Strikes Back is on later. Wanna watch it?”
OK, bottom line: I don’t care who you are, that text was a great opening line. Either you’re into “Star Wars” and you’re down or you hate “Star Wars” and you aren’t interested. I’m willing to admit that it might not have been the best text you got yesterday, but it certainly beats sending you a text asking about your day. (Give me some credit. I’m the slightest bit more creative than your friends.) You pull out your phone, see this text from me, and think, “Wow! I should probably answer her because she might need to know whether she is or isn’t watching a “Star Wars” marathon on Spike TV by herself tonight.” But you don’t. You let me sit in your inbox as an unread notification that is only a testament to how “hectic” your day has been. Oh, and if I’m really lucky, you read it and ignore it all together because well, “Star Wars” just “isn’t your thing.”
It’s 7 p.m.—the day after—and I haven’t heard from you. Twelve hours have passed since I last reached out to you and you can’t be bothered to spend a few seconds of your day responding to me? “Chill. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I was just busy.” Me? Chill? No. You chill! And while you’re chilling, I’ll be burning with the flames of a thousand suns because I’m just that pissed that you’re an inconsiderate dick.
I was taught at an early age that when someone takes the time to talk to you (even if you aren’t the most excited or intrigued by the conversation), you do the polite thing and at least try to give him or her the time of day. If it’s a complete flop then you throw in the towel and resign from engaging again. With this upbringing, this no-response-texting-conundrum hits a little too close to home. After spending the better part of the week marinating on how to be okay with being ignored, I came to this conclusion: no one ever just decides to be okay with it—at least not at first. It is a process and this process looks eerily similar to the five stages of loss and grief.
That being said, every unreturned text is directly linked to a sender journeying through the following five stages of acceptance (more formally known in my mind as a shitty pun “text-eptance”):
1.) Denial helps us survive the loss. It helps us pace our feelings. There is a grace in letting yourself feel only as much as you are ready to. This stage comes with a lot of internal doubt and panic… *cue the internal monologue* “Surely, he is just really busy right now. Surely, he is doing homework, or he’s at work right now. Surely, he couldn’t possibly be ignoring me. He gave me no indication that he wouldn’t be interested in talking with me or hanging out with me again. It’s only been three hours and he’ll respond when he gets a chance.” (You’re starting to seem like a psycho with the way that you’re worrying about it. Just stop.)
2.) Anger is a necessary stage in the healing process wherein you begin to channel your frustrations into everything you do. A customer comes up to you at work and the next thing you know you’re biting their head off because they couldn’t figure out how to put a shirt back on a hanger. Okay, that’s pretty fair because they’re an idiot, and your frustrations are appropriately directed. Sometimes you are going to be angry with the random person in the grocery store. Beware of these times because (I promise you) there is a possibility you will rage so hard, blackout, and come to having yelled at the nice deli man about the quality of the ham he is serving to patrons. It’s not his fault the ham isn’t pristine, and he isn’t the one that never texted you back. Redirect.
3.) Bargaining is the stage of temporary truce. Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. Think back to all the times you decided to not text someone back. Think long and hard about the way you are feeling now. Would you do it over again? “If he responds to me now then I will make sure no one ever feels the way I did while waiting on him.” During this stage you will spend quite a bit of time rethinking the text you sent. Was it dumb? Did I misspell something? Is he not responding because he thinks “The Empire Strikes Back” is lame and he would prefer to watch “The Phantom Menace”? You might even feel the need to double-text. “Hey, if that doesn’t work for you we can totally watch something else!” DON’T DO IT! I know you’re panicking, but let it lie.
4.) The next to last stage is depression. We feel empty and lost and we fear we will never feel otherwise. When the disappointment of the situation settles it is hard to ignore. You find yourself cuddled on the couch with a tub of your favorite flavored ice cream and can’t seem to stop watching the episode where Izzie loses Denny. You even give serious thought to living with your face pressed to the bathroom floor. Alright… that is drastic (especially for this), but you still feel upset and sincerely confused as to what could have gone wrong.
5.) After being confused for entirely too long, you enter into the final stage: acceptance. Acceptance is often confused for a feeling of being “all right” or “all good.” That is not what you’re feeling. What you’re doing is accepting the reality of the situation and this gradually leads to feeling Okay. “Wow! He really is a dick,” she says to herself thoughtfully. Pour yourself a glass of wine, crack open a beer, or concoct a beverage a bartender would be proud to serve because you’ve reached the Promise Land. Raise your drink and let’s have a toast (for the douchebags)! Cheers to you, Ass-hat! Not texting me back was probably the only positive thing you did for me yesterday. You must have known I would have more fun watching the movie with my friends instead of you. You must have known I would be too preoccupied with whether or not you were going to hold my hand, and as a result, I wouldn’t give the right amount of focus to Luke and Vader’s lightsaber duel.
It’s 9 p.m.—a few days after—and you just texted me. “I’m sorry I’m just now responding. It’s been a busy week.” So I’ll send a very calm, cool, and collected: “That’s cool. Hope this next week is better for you.” And with that I’ve (unfortunately) already written you off. It very well may have been a busy week. I believe you; I do. I’m almost convinced it was a week from hell for you if you haven’t touched your phone in six days when you’re normally glued to it. But my week has been busy too. I’ve spent it incessantly worrying about you,and I realized that’s not how I want to spend any week in the future.
So, thank you! Thank you for sparing me awkward conversation and uncomfortable side-glances. Thank you for taking more time on yourself than you did on me. Thank you for not responding to me because you did me a great service; you made me realize that I shouldn’t be concerning myself with someone that isn’t concerned with me.
