Give Them Time To Reply To Your Text
If your initial message to them wasn't an urgent one, it's important to give them some time to reply. There are plenty of reasons they might not get back to you right away — they could be busy at work, not in the mental space to chat, or dealing with bad cell service.
Ignoring messages is frowned upon in these always-on times. At its most egregious, dropping out of communication is condemned as “ghosting,” which, in the years since the term became widespread, has become a deadly sin of digital communications.
Give them the benefit of the doubt, both experts agree. If you wait seven days, without sending a double text, and your inbox is still at zero, you should take that as a sign too. No response is a response, Fields says.
There are many reasons why someone might ignore your text. They may be busy and not have time to respond, or they may simply not be interested in what you have to say. If you keep sending texts that are ignored, it might be a good idea to take the hint and stop messaging that person.
Ghosting is when someone stops responding to messages and disappears from a relationship without explanation, usually in the context of dating.
It's fine to ask for time to reflect on an argument or to tell someone who deeply hurt you that you no longer wish to speak to them. But ignoring a person to punish them or make them fearful is a manipulative tactic.
When we put ourselves out there by sending people messages on an online dating site (or many), we risk the chance of not getting a message back. But, let me be clear: Non-response does not equal rejection. In other words, the absence of a positive reply — a return message — is not the same as someone turning you down.
According to their study messaging etiquette says waiting more than 20 minutes to respond can be seen as rude.
A week gives the person enough time to thoughtfully respond.
Even though it's a little old-fashioned, some people will wait 3 days after a date to text you back to make you miss them more. Waiting any longer than a week could be a sign they're not interested, and it might be best to let the conversation die out.
Most psychologists indicate that it depends on the situation. When silence, or, rather, the refusal to engage in a conversation, is used as a control tactic to exert power in a relationship, then it becomes "the silent treatment," which is toxic, unhealthy, and abusive.
Giving someone silent treatment is a form of manipulation. The silent treatment can be used to modify behavior. Being ignored has a huge effect on a person's mental state, so they're willing to do nearly anything to regain the manipulator's attention.
If someone can't or won't respond, we call them unresponsive.
Not getting messages has the opposite effect. We feel invalidated, unimportant, and excluded. This is why you feel so bad when someone doesn't respond to your texts. Someone who leaves your message on 'Seen' and doesn't respond is especially cruel.
If he is ignoring you and is not texting you back, then you have to wait at least 2 to 3 days before texting him lower back. This will be a polite follow-up textual content, after which you could see what happens from there.
Sometimes people don't respond as a way of deliberately signaling they're annoyed, or that they don't want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.
Emails with a “no-reply” in the “From” field were once a common email marketing practice, but now it's a big no-no. A no-reply email address is an address in your domain that's not set up to receive incoming mail.
Rejection involves being excluded from a social relationship or interaction. It can be active—for example in acts of bullying or teasing. Or it can be passive—for example in the acts of giving the silent treatment or ignoring someone (DeWall & Bushman, 2011).
Worse still, studies have shown that the pain of being ignored is worse than being bullied. You are experiencing social pain, which you feel when you're being ignored, overlooked or rejected. The problem being social pain is very real because it shares common neural pathways to physical pain.
Tell the person how the silent treatment hurts and leaves you feeling frustrated and alone. That's not what you want or need in a relationship. Explain that you can't resolve issues this way, then be specific about those issues. If this sort of behavior is a relationship deal-breaker for you, state it plainly.
Well, in short, just three days. While every relationship is different, three days is enough time to consider yourself ghosted. Sure, everyone has emergencies or can come up with a valid excuse for not responding, but letting things linger for three days or longer is enough to categorise it as a ghosted situation.
Overwhelmingly, all the experts we consulted recommend not texting anything after being ghosted. We know! It's hard. Sending a message is just not worth your time or energy, especially since you can't control the response.
Ghosting is a relatively new colloquial dating term that refers to abruptly cutting off contact with someone without giving that person any warning or explanation for doing so. Even when the person being ghosted reaches out to re-initiate contact or gain closure, they're met with silence.