Dear Prudence,
How do I adapt to different people’s texting styles? I’m no newbie to texting; I embraced it fully over 20 years ago. I was a pretty prolific texter at one time—I was known in my family as the “one who would always answer.” Over the last few years, though, lots has happened—major loss, interpersonal trauma, and also having two small children. In that time, I went to therapy twice a week to deal with my difficulties, as well as create new, healthier boundaries for myself. One of them included letting go of or heavily minimizing relationships where I didn’t feel like I was being heard in the most basic ways. With some relationships, this has been pretty clear-cut for me. With others, I’m not sure—and this usually has to do with texting. I don’t text nearly as much as I used to, but try to be straightforward and friendly with my friends and family when I text them. I try to present information clearly. I will text longer chunks of response when situations warrant it (and I have the time). Mostly, I just try to be responsive and practice basic in-person politeness.
However, I still have what feels like an ongoing problem: I hate it when people don’t respond to me, or take an extremely long time to do so. It’s so hard to know if people are being passive-aggressive, or avoidant, or just genuinely forgot. With some relationships, I’ve learned over the last few years that these people are just not great about getting back to me, or anyone, in a regular way. With others, I know that they prefer not to be “glued” to their phone, so take a really long time to respond. And there are those who will not answer when overwhelmed by inquiries or longer responses.
This variety has made it harder to maintain healthy boundaries with these relationships. Even if I don’t cut a person off who doesn’t respond to a text, I still feel bad when I don’t hear from them. At worst, I feel a kind of abandonment. Even if I don’t let myself get into my feels, I still feel uncomfortable about it, and less inclined to text that person. Should I just apply different social rules to texting responses and timing? Am I making myself unnecessarily miserable? Or should I continue to just adapt to individuals when and where I can, and radically accept that texting is a dimension of communication I can’t totally get a grip on? Should I perhaps try to step away from it?
—Tired of Texting