Not answering messages

[MassiveSaladEater]

I have a friend/acquaintance who is very slow to answer messages. I can see from WhatsApp that she is using her phone quite a bit, so she's not someone who only rarely picks it up.

She's been like this for years and there have also been instances where she has been a bit rude to me (excluding me from arrangements etc) She's very friendly to me in person but I think I just have to accept she doesn't like me that much. The question is how to react to the latest situation. I messaged her yesterday to tell her I had fixed an introduction for a job interview for her daughter (we had previously discussed it and she seemed keen for me to do it). It's quite a nice and potentially useful/helpful thing for me to have done. She read the message yesterday afternoon and has been online umpteen times since but has not replied.

I know the usual advice on MN is dignified silence but I am really pissed off with her and am minded to say something. Any suggestions?

Switch off the "last seen" function on your whatsapp and stop behaving like a teenager. She could be dealing with number of work/family emergencies and responding to your very kind offer is less urgent.

If she is genuinely ungrateful/unpleasant that's different, but stop monitoring her phone usage like an obsessive crush.

Why are you sitting monitoring when she is online 🤦‍♀️

Someone was moaning about people turning off the last seen function on here the other day. This is a prime example of why people do it - because some people do actually monitor it!

What is the best way to respond to someone who is ungrateful?

If you think she is ungrateful, then withdraw the offer. "As you have not replied to my message within 18hours, i no longer wish to help your daughter with her interview."

She will think you are very strange, but at least you have made your position clear.

You don’t know she has been ungrateful yet, it’s only been 24 hours! Have you really nothing more important to worry about??

@DropOfffArtiste I agree it would be very strange to withdraw my offer to help her daughter. But that was your strange suggestion, not mine.

It's a last straw situation. She has been standoffish to me in communications for quite a while and I don't understand why she can't just say thank you on this occasion.

It's so creepy to me. Leave people to respond in their own time unless urgent.

I do think she should say thank you but if you get a lot of WhatsApp messages she could genuinely have missed it.

I think the take away for you should be not to go above and beyond for her any more and wait for her to reach out for meet ups etc. Don't try to push closer to people who pull away, it only leads to hurt and upset.

You have no idea what has been going on in her life for the past 24 hours. She doesn’t owe you a response. If she doesn’t respond for days and you’re no longer inclined to help just say that. Zero need for the hand wringing and last seen monitoring unless you’re intending to be dramatic.

@NeverHadHaveHas
She doesn't owe me a response? For fixing up an interview for a job her daughter really wants? How strange.

She doesn't owe it to you within 24 hours.

Do you not think she may want to speak with her daughter before replying to you? Sometimes an instant reply when you're dealing with multiple threads, plus emails and texts, etc isn't practical.

Aside from WhatsApp if you think she doesn't behave towards you as if you are a friend then reduce contact and withdraw from the friendship. Maybe you come across as prickly so she carefully formulates her responses to you?

Does she need to speak to her daughter about it before replying, to arrange times? Or perhaps she has asked her daughter to respond.

She certainly doesn’t owe you a response within 24 hours especially when the message involves a third party who she may need to speak to before responding.

@Moltenpink it's very possible she has forwarded the message to her daughter and she hasn't replied yet. That's understandable as her daughter has ADHD. She's lovely but not totally organised. However, who wouldn't reply something like: I have forwarded details to x. Thanks for organising

Stop doing things for her. Stop speaking to her. Problem solved.

A good rule for most interactions is to match their energy/effort. Give only what you get.

I sometimes take my time replying to messages, simply because there are a couple of people in my life who seem to message me either non-stop or with stuff that we've already discussed and I don't have anything new to add.
My MIL is the worst - she will message me with some nonsensical question where she already knows the answer or knows I will contact her if and when I have news, and she knows I'm really unwell with my condition and fatigue is a huge part of it and I just feel too mentally exhausted to answer a message where there's nothing really to be said because it leads into another bombardment of questions every time - she monitors it though and if I've not replied within an hour, she rings my husband and tells him I'm ignoring her.

Sometimes though, I'll have been busy and I get a few people messaging and it feels frustrating because I have stuff of my own to do and it feels like they're all demanding my attention at the same time.

Maybe your friend is going through something similar. She probably has no idea how it makes you feel (your post has certainly made me think twice about my own practice of ignoring messages and responding either later or the next day).

If she’s read it the. I agree it’s kind of rude

Op I understand why you are annoyed. I have a kind of friend who does this and it pisses me off when she doesn’t acknowledge my messages, so I don’t really bother anymore - I figure she clearly isn’t that fussed at keeping communication going so it’s easier all round.

But I do think to keep checking when your friend has been online is weird. Just let it go this time and drop the contact going forward. The fact you say she often does this shows she doesn’t value you.

I'm not sure why so many posters think it's ok for her to ignore your message after you have done her a big favour. Did she ask for your help?
I think it's potentially rude although there is also a chance she has made a genuine mistake or thought her daughter was going to reply or something. I'd send her another text and politely ask if her daughter is still interested.

@MeYouAndAQuestion thank you! She still hasn't answered. I know her DD well and knew she was looking for a particular job. I mentioned my sister worked in that field and asked friend if I should find out if she was looking to employ someone. By chance my sister was interviewing, she had had lots of applicants and wasn't going to interview any more but she agreed to interview friend's DD. So, I think that was quite a nice thing of me to have arranged

Now I'm not only annoyed but embarrassed as my sister agreed to make time for her but I don't know if her daughter bothered to go to the interview. Anyway, all my friend had to do was write a two word reply to me 'great, thanks' For those saying I shouldn't be checking if she was online, I needed to know if she had got the message or not and anyway I think it's totally normal and reasonable to expect a response from someone who is obviously alive and communicating with others.

I completely understand why you feel annoyed. But it seems that you like her daughter and her daughter very much wants the work so I think it would be unfair to withdraw the offer. Can you contact her daughter directly?

I haven't said anywhere in this thread that I would withdraw the offer. I would never do something like that as it would be petulant and would hurt my friend's daughter, who I am fond of.

The reason why I started this thread was to ask how I should respond to this woman's lack of acknowledgement knowing that she had received the message but not thanked me. Also that she has a history of being less than enthusiastic with communications. I felt like it was the last straw and wanted to say something to her about her rudeness. It never occurred to me to say I would withdraw my offer of help. That would be weird.

Anyway, she finally replied late last night to say her daughter was grateful and would be going to the interview. She didn't say thank you herself. I think she doesn't like saying thank you to me. Lesson learned and I won't be getting in touch with her anymore or doing favours.

Don't bother commenting, but make a mental note not to be so helpful in future.

your problem is that you see an act of kindness as something that needs to be appreciated, acknowledged and possibly reciprocated.

lower your expectation that other people see it that way. They don't always have the 'gratitude gene' that drives them to thank the person who helps them. It just doesn't occur to them to be gracious and acknowledge the help.

stop monitoring your friend's mobile usage and get on with your life, it's quite controlling and will make you miserable when they don't act as you expect.

I felt like it was the last straw and wanted to say something to her about her rudeness

honestly, don't t do this, unless you want to come across as deranged. What you did for her daughter was a very thought thing to do, but in her eyes she probably doesn't rate your gesture as being that important, which does make her ungrateful, but you can't control her, so let go of the idea that you can, or that by giving her a ticking off that it will drive them message home, it just won't!