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.

Sometimes I don’t want to reply, sometimes I don’t even want to read a message off someone.

So I do this thing, where I don’t

A relative will send me a message asking a question (usually before 7 a.m.) like "How are you?". I immediately respond (as I always do to my family) but then get no response. It's as if they type and then sod off for 2 days. That's irritating!

Don't bother asking if you don't want to stick around for the response.

Ahhh good old wats app. Messages are designed to pick up and reply when you want a bit like an email. If you wanted a quick response you should have called.

People need to stop overthinking it, she’s busy, they have a life that doesn’t involve you. It’s not always about you, stop worrying so much about when other people are going to reply based on your own timeline and crack on with life. You will be a much happier person in the long run:

Oh wow, some of these responses. Peopel that don't even understand the original OP. NO NOT EXPECTING A THANKS FPR A THANKS.

Give your head a wobble is a phrase that makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

FWIW have resolved this issue but now I can't even be bothered to explain to half the responses here. Just answer me this. Why so bitchy. Really? I know it's the AIBU snake pit but some of you are either awful online only or just awful people through and through.

Thanks to the considered and sensible responses

Just because i CAN reply doesnt mean i have to . I dont have to respond just because you sent me a text. I will respond in my own time. When i feel ready for it. Society is way too obsessed with being live and instant responses. No thanks

I’ve got a friend who only uses WhatsApp to arrange to meet up. She takes ages to reply to any other message and doesn’t engage in long chats. I’ve learned that this is just how she is and that’s okay.

OTOH, my DM loves using WhatsApp and will go on and on and on if I keep answering. So I tend to leave gaps when I don’t answer. If I see a message from her, I also don’t always answer immediately.

Otherwise, I do reply as quickly as I can to messages, but very occasionally I forget, as I’m sure everyone does.

But the whole point of texting is that you reply when it’s conversation. As has been said, if you need a quick reply from someone, you should call them rather tan text them.

I mean, you reply ‘when convenient’, predictive text once again.

I’m late to this, I see. I’m sorry you felt got at, OP, I very rarely start a thread for that reason (and only when I honestly need to know if I’m being U, I know I’ll get that on AIBU .)

Uh... I've disabled the "read" feature on WhatsApp. Exactly because I hate this kind of thing...

It unfortunaly isn't possible for group chats. I wish it was.

I have just checked and I have 91 unread messages. Whatsap is like canon fire, do people genuinely read and respond to every single message? It’s a full time job!

I have had to put a few group chats on silent, agree people get carried away, sometimes a group chat can be quite funny, but when you are getting pinged every 30 seconds, can be a little distracting.

If you go onto the relationships board and post that a romantic interest or close friend is not responding to your messages, the reply you will get is that this person is not interested in speaking to you, has no respect for you, and does not view you as any kind of priority.

You come on this thread and people are unreasonable to expect a reply to messages.

I'm somewhere in between. People are busy and can't always respond straight away. No problem there. I'll leave people on read for a while for this reason too sometimes. Occasionally I'll just forget to reply altogether. But I wouldn't deliberately leave someone who was really important to me hanging for days and if a friend was saying things about me that some of the posters on here are saying - that she just can't be fucked with my message - I would assume she was not particularly bothered about the friendship and drop the rope.