Not opening whatsapp messages

[Constantfacepalm]

This is semi-lght hearted, but I must vent and ask a) AIBU to be annoyed and b) if you do this, WHY??

First of all, I often don't open a message for a day or so til I'm ready to respond. And I have plenty of chats where we can go a week or two between long replies I respect that, and in those chats I never respond quickly as it's a bit much putting the ball straight back in their court.

Anyway I have a friend, not a particulatly close one, who has not bothered to open my recent thank you message about something she sent. My message was sent 4 days ago. We had conversation back and forth prior to this, but all quite short in case you think she wants to wait til she has time to formulate a proper response.

Perhaps she doesn't open WhatsApp much, you say. Yesterday, she replied to a group chat I am in.

So WTF is she thinking? That if she doesn't open the message, it's not rude to ignore it? That I won't wonder why she hasn't replied as I'll assume she hasn't seen it? Does she think I'm that dim? It only requires a two word response, FYI.
In addition, how does she put up with the thing at the top telling her she has an unread message when she is clearly on her WhatsApp, probably quite regularly.

I'm not desperate about the friendship, but we have enough mutual connections that it won't fade away.

I just have a bee in my bonnet about rude and or baffling behaviour in any form. I feel better for having vented.

Are you sure it needs a response?
If she sent you something, and you thanked, isn't that transaction over?

Are you sure she hasn't just turned off read receipts? Some of my friends messages never show as read even when they respond

I'm guilty of this im afraid. Especially if it comes through when I'm working. You dont need to open a message to read it so mine can sit for a week unread before I answer

I can see a preview of mine without opening the messages. She may well have read the preview.

I think it depends.
I've started not opening up messages from one of my friends particularly promptly. She leaves me on unread for a while, so now I do the same.

She said something, you said thank you, she doesn't need to send anything back and has probably seen the message as a preview.

She has probably seen the preview, I’d read it and knows she doesn’t need to reply. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Doesn’t sound like it needs a response, if a friend sent me a ‘thank you...’ message that I read from the notification I wouldn’t open it to reply. What do you want her to say? ‘Thanks for the thanks’? That could go on forever!

I leave messages unopened all the time if I don’t have the time / inclination to respond right away. I honestly don’t care if people find it rude because I think WhatsApp can be so incessant and intrusive that I’m supportive of people using whatever tactics they like to manage their interactions with it. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who get shirty when others don’t respond the way they would like them to, because it’s not really something anyone is entitled to.

Maybe she archived your chat? I do this with most contacts.

A thank you doesn’t really need a reply, so she hasn’t opened it because she doesn’t need to until she wants to contact you again or you send a message that does need a reply. You are seeing rudeness that doesn’t exist.

Ah ok so firstly if she read it as a preview then I'm fine as I now understand that she isn't being weird deliberately not opening it.

And without being outing, there's a reason I would have expected a response- I wasn't waiting for a thanks for a thanks!

You can read stuff without opening it

I currently have about 60 unread messages / group chats in my WhatsApp

Also people don’t have the blue ticks on to be stalked in to a response

You can read the message on the notification screen! It is read. Leaving it as unread makes me remember to reply.

Surely the conversation has to end sometime and maybe she thought you thanking her was the end of the conversation?

Are you after a thank you for your thank you?

Oh. Lots happened since I opened the thread.

I agree with Oatmilk, I read the preview but deliberately leave it unread if I need to reply later, as a reminder.

Are you sure it needs a response?
If she sent you something, and you thanked, isn't that transaction over?

This. She gave a gift, you said thank you. That's the end of it.

WhatsApp started off as a great tool especially since me and my family and friends are scattered.

It has now become oppressive to me. Between the long voice messages (which you kind of have to respond to in kind dont you, you cant listen to a 5 minute voice message with just a typed "I feel your pain!) to the notifications and spy-friendly ticks, its exhausting and invasive.

I actually have a friend who isnt talking to me now, because I wasnt in touch for two weeks. Why? Well because either she wants to call me to rant for half an hour, or shes leaving me uber long voice messages. So I took two weeks off and now shes playing dead 🤷‍♀️

I really dont have time for this shit. I often don't read messages (especially since we can preview them) because either

• I don't want to read and then forget to respond, or
• I dont want you to see I've read it because then people like the aforementioned friend start their little ticking stopwatch countdown of how long it has taken me to reply

Wish we could go back to the days of meeting your friend in person, a phone call in between if you havent seen them for more than a month, and the occasional long winded letter/email.

It is so draining to be constantly available on tap to people and I'm getting quite sick of having to justify how I choose to use my own fucking time.

Rant over!

I don't see the problem!

Crotch “ Wish we could go back to the days of meeting your friend in person, a phone call in between if you havent seen them for more than a month, and the occasional long winded letter/email.”

Don’t use WhatsApp.

In my case WhatsApp on my phone is crap ... not sure if it's bad WiFi signal but I often have messages that take a fed days to come through and my replies take just as long in reverse.

I'm not too bothered because for some reason I fuc&@ng hate WhatsApp. And group chats ... who ever invented that hell deserves a long painful death

WhatsApp is a stalking app. I've set mine so that nobody knows if I've viewed the message or not

I get over 300 ish (don't count) WhatsApp's a day. My dad gets 2. On average. People might not behave how you do with WhatsApp and that's fine.