To be fed up how quick everyone expects a response?

[asrarpolar]

People contact me by email, whatsup, facebook messenger and most seem to expect a response that day. Its just too much and is really stressing me out. If it is important phone me! But nobody ever does.

I regret getting WhatsApp to be honest! Even though it’s fundamentally the same as texting, the expectations of responsiveness are so much higher - for some reason.

However, it helps me feel less pressure to respond if I turn off notifications. I only turn them on when I know there will be particular business going on in a group and I need to be on top of it.

Interesting post. I'm opposite of you. I find people who can't be arsed to answer texts because they are busy or forget the height of rudeness and v hurtful.

My friend has recently complained that she doesn't think we are as close anymore. We aren't. It's because I stopped texting her cos she takes 3 days to reply to anything! Or just doesn't bother.
To me this screams 'im not interested in you and don't care or like you or think you are worth a 2min text'. Fine. Stuff you then!

Clearly this is a 50/50 opinion.

Interesting...I just can't see it from the other side at all

It is not a case of can not be arsed.
It feels like being in a loud theme park and someone saying just go one more ride. But you are overwhelmed and need to get somewhere quiet to cope. To call that can not be arsed is to miss the point.

So all those saying it is only 30 seconds clearly do not understand.

I pretty much always do a "still on for tonight?" text

Completely agree

I have started just putting my phone on Do Not Disturb a lot. Anyone who I wouldnt want to miss a call or text from incase its urgent (ie the school office, my elderly parents, my DH etc) is on my favourites so they can still get through.
It's liberating!
My aim is to do that on weekends, and allocate 10 mins in the morning and 10 mins in the evening to catching up on other messaging.

I would be pretty angry at someone cancelling that late unless it was illness or similar.

Tbf so do I!

So often there is a sick child or emergency with a sick parent in my gang that it always feels safe to double check!

@asrarpolar But how long does it take you to send a message back? Are you replying in 2hours or 10 days later? Those are very different things.

I try and check once a day but do not always manage that. That is stressful enough.

I'm with you OP. The expectation to reply ASAP is ridiculous. I also have friends who are seemingly messaging all the time. I might read and run because I'm busy. I have 1 friend who stalks on whatsapp. If she sees you have been online and not replied/ read her message then she gets the arse. She continously Checks people's last seen and makes assumptions/analyses from there with no thought that the recipient might, just might, be busy. FGS. I no longer go on whatsapp until I'm ready to read and reply at the same time. If its urgent it will be from DC/H and they will ring me.

Meh I’d say that’s fine. It’s an asynchronous form of communication.

People are allowed to message you as much as they like just make it clear you won’t respond straight away.

You're been pretty much instant messaging on here though.

Have you actually told people that you prefer phone calls? If bot you should.

Also tell them that unless you actually cancel then assume it's still on. People like reassurance though.

Nobody rings anyone any more ever as far as I can see. Except much older people who like a chat. The only people who phone me are over 80. Or scam calls.

Certainly not friends making arrangements. It's like we need it written down to register in our brains as real. Have an electronic paper trail to check back as all too busy to remember vocal information.

I do think people message mostly because you can then reply when suits. But putting an arbitrary time limit on that without informing the person on the other end is wrong.

Using your example, if I'm arranging something important I will say, or type rather, let me know by 10pm Thursday as I'll be online to try for tickets at 9am Friday. It's clear and stops disputes.

I find that a lot of my friends who wait days to text back, do so precisely because they want to do me the respect of texting back when they can give me more than 30 seconds of their time.
Sometimes they will write that in the interim though, which is nice but I understand if they don't. We just have an understanding that if its not urgent, we get that we're all bloody busy! Cos if it's a good friend, it's not usually just 30 seconds pn your phone is it...

My friendship group had this problem, with lots of different messages flying around. We all work and lost of us have children - so all busy.

However, to get round the issue of numerous groups - WhatsApp, FB, text etc. as a group of friends we decided to set up one FB group for all arrangement/plans for lunches, meet ups, drinks etc. We all just use that one group. However, one friend in particular never responds to anything, but used to expect us to follow up with a phone call specifically to her. She used to expect me to phone her to tell her what plans had been out in the group chat rather than just reading and responding. We have had this group for about 5 years now and she is always too busy/stressed to read and respond.

It got to a stage where I told her I was stopping being her ‘social secretary’ as I was too busy and it was actually causing me stress. I told her it was now her responsibility to read the messages and do her own responses.

I have lost count of the amount of social events that she has now missed, but that is her choice.

OP, if you didn’t respond to me, confirming a meet up (which would take about 20 seconds to type ‘yes’) then I would assume you weren’t coming. It’s not other people’s jobs to chase you up by phone - people have busy lives and can’t be chasing round after people who can’t be bothered to respond to a simple message.

You've been replying to the thread pretty promptly... Are you posting on your phone?

Admittedly, I have a small circle, not many friends and work for myself, so I get a very manageable, small number of messages/ emails. I do reply quickly as I appreciate I get to receive and get to reply to a person who wants to engage with me.

Some people don't respond to my messages though and it just means to me they don't value our relationship in the same way. I sent out a couple of invitations recently. One person did not reply. Yes - she must be very busy, bombarded with messages from all sorts - but my message was fairly urgent as I needed to know numbers to book. Same person replied to another person's invitation in a group where I was also included, but ignored my second message too...
I do believe replying to some people is not a chore; you're excited they are connecting with you and go ahead and text back straight away. Its usually the people you are not too keen on that you feel are being demanding...

Just think of all the messages you could have responded to in the time you've spent chippily moaning about people not phoning you every five minutes with a question.

@Lucyccfc68 you expect a yes even if a meet up is pre arranged? I always turn up. I hate last minute changes and I think it is rude unless unavoidable.

@pubbup not on phone. But I would find this stressful if I had to reply and I would never start a thread regularly. It is very occasional thing. Not replying does not automatically mean they do not value your friendship.

This is the difficult part. I have tried to explain why this is so stressful and yet people on the other side keep seeing at as people like me just do not care.

Yes, if a meet up had been confirmed a few weeks in advance. People are busy and things come up, so a quick text to confirm is appropriate.

You don’t seem to understand that your lack of a response is actually quite stressful for others and expecting them to phone you, just adds to one more thing they have to remember to do. If I arranged a meet up and text to confirm e.g. a day or so before and I got no response, I would assume that you weren’t coming. I am busy and don’t have the time to be phoning and chasing for a response.

You seem to expect understanding and empathy from others that you are busy and can get stressed, but you don’t have the same courtesy for others.

@Lucyccfc68 but you do not need to confirm with me. I will be there. I always am.

Why not just send everyone a message saying that some tout takes you a while to answer but if they need a quick reply to call you on your landline.
Problem solved..

An idea that might help you - choose one (or a couple) of the social media apps you like best and delete the rest. Anyone who wants to contact you will know they have to contact you through X or call, and that way you only have to check one place instead of being stressed by having to keep tabs on everything.

I am someone who doesn’t use most social media and I never have an issue when I tell people “oh I don’t have Facebook but you can reach me on WhatsApp” or similar.

But unfortunately for you, communication has changed. Like I said further up, I've had to learn that most people now do not want calls unless messaged first. I never knew, but it seemed that most people did.

And it turns out that it's also become normal to check availability closer to the time. I get the same 'are you still on for ..?' messages too, and I've recently started doing the same as it seems that it had become the norm.

If you want to operate differently (and I recognise that for some reason this is genuinely a stressor for you) I think you need to make it clear to others that that's the case, and you prefer a call.

My daughter is, I think, a little like you. Occasionally she'll just tell everyone that she's having a break from her phone for a few days, and won't be checking messages. Maybe that's the way to go for you?