to not understand all the angst and trauma and indignation over the length of time between text/WA messages

[wallowinginmywellies]

I do come from a generation of letter writers, and would send a long chatty letter to friends who had moved away, and get one back a month or so later, and write again a few weeks or months after that.

Surely texts are similar, they are long term conversations, incidental to the life you are currently living right in front of you. A friendly written natter can have gaps of hours or days or weeks, without any offence given or taken? People are surely busy with their actual day to day business, and not living with their phones in their hands, or even with their phones in the same room as them.

I don't have my phone on at work. One of my best friends has a habit of sitting in bed at the end of the day to read and reply to messages she got earlier.

I have just glanced down my whatssapp list of chats. Currently engaged in around 20 friendly chats with close friends. About half I was the last person to write and about half the other person was. The longest gap out of 20 close fiends is currently 10 days, and it was the other person who wrote. Going back through the chat, he leaves a couple of weeks between comments quite regularly. Going by some of the posts on Mumsnet, I should be reading a whole history of passive aggression and deliberate snubbing into this conversation, but we are just good friends having a long drawn out natter as we both get on with other things, enjoy our lives, and talk to many other people at the same time.

Why does anybody think anyone owes them immediate responses? it would take up your whole life! Just being on whatapp!

But also, what is there to say?

I get that a quick response might be wanted if your partner texts "I'm just passing Tescos do you want anything before I jump on this bus" - But here is a sample of last messages in my chats right now

" Lets try and get together some time soon" " Come and join me for a workout" "I'm getting Xrayed next week" "That is good news" "going to bed, got a migraine" "O well done, that sounds tough" "nope, raining here as well"

Should anyone be mortally offended that any of these did not get an instant response?

I can't understand why a break of a few days in a stream of messages is anything to feel affronted by

YANBU - there is no time limit required for a response for most chats

YABU - I'm offended or worried if I don't get a response straight away

Agree completely. I get overwhelmed with the multiple mediums people try to communicate through. At work I have emails, teams messages, random calls, in person meetings, and then at home I also have personal emails, texts, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn - I have to approach it in batches or I’d never put my phone down.

I agree. My pet hate is when there’s been a few weeks delay and people follow up with a ‘are you okay hon?’
if I’m under pressure already and can’t reply this just increases stress! Unless they’re offering help :)

YANBU

The only time I hope for a quicker response is if it is about birthday and Christmas gifts (nieces and nephews are 5+ hours away and only see them 3-4 times a year) and even then I give the person 2-3 days before following up.

But that works for you. No one is suggesting you need to do anything you're not comfortable with. You and your friends' style and speed of communication clearly suits you, which is great. Other people's mileage may vary.

For instance, I'm a far from frequent messager, but I did tell a friend I was still his friend, but wasn't going to communicate with him via text any more (we live in different countries, and he hates speaking on the phone, so our interactions were purely text-based). He would message me with something that invited a reply, I would reply within a day or so, he would leave my reply unread for several weeks or a month after which he would message about something entirely different which invited a reply, with no indication he had read my previous message. This just didn't work for me as a pattern of communication. It might be fine for other people.

I would have thought the x-ray one might have deserved a response

I'm sure it will get one eventually, I don't feel the need for an immediate answer.