So many posts that I see on this subreddit are of people who are suffering from so much social anxiety that they try to place value and judgments on literally every tiny interaction that they have with others, out of some belief that they can protect themselves from hurt if they can whack -a-mole others as fake, false friends.
But you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know why that person didn’t respond to your text. Send another one. You don’t know why that person declined hanging out. Invite them out again.
You can’t gauge how much a person cares about you by how frequently they text you, but you also can’t measure a friendship by frequency of seeing each other. Enjoy other people because you actually enjoy people, not because you’re afraid of being alone.
Comment
by u/ProserpinaFC from discussion Are you part of LGBT?
in intj
5 comments
I love this! When I start ruminating about why someone hasn’t texted back, I think of all the reasons I’ve never answered a text. Maybe 1 or 2 times it’s been out of dislike for the person, but all the (many, many) rest? I’ve been sleeping or busy or distracted or too tired or or or. In those situations, I appreciate when someone texts me again! When I flip that and assume the person I’ve texted is in the same boat, it doesn’t bother me so much anymore, and I get the confidence to send a little reminder text or something totally different. Almost every time, I’ve gotten back “I can’t believe I forgot to answer!”
And sometimes, life just gets busy or painful. Like right now, I don’t have the energy to see people or think about their wants or needs when my SO and I have a million challenges going on. It’s not that I don’t still love my friends, and I hate that they’re going through hard times too, but I can’t deal with my hard times AND theirs. We’ll get together when we all come through it.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to adjust my thinking to the fact that even though we’re all by our phones always doesn’t mean we’re using them to communicate, and just because we’re doing nothing doesn’t mean we aren’t busy, and that’s okay. We protect ourselves and our friends do too, which helps us stay human to BE friends.
At the same time, however, the general principle is people make time and effort for whom they want to make time and effort for. If you are such a person in their life, they will make it so abundantly clear to you via actions that you will never have to be so anxious about it in the first place. They will, for example, respond to your texts and accept most, if not all, of your invitations. Yes, people get busy, but if they value and respect you, they will eventually make time for you in their lives.
The harsh reality is people lose respect for you when you do not read the signs early on they are not interested in you. Nobody is going to say out loud to you that they don’t like you or value you. Instead, they show it via actions. They constantly ignore your texts or invitations, or they constantly flake. Furthermore, people lose respect for you when you become anxious, needy, or clingy for more of their time and attention when they aren’t giving it for whatever reason. These behaviors suggest to them that they are your only social option and that you are not socially respected by others.
That was actually pretty romantic too 💕
This message came one day too late for me. I already deleted them off my discord friend list for not replying to my last message. I wonder if it’s too late to do damage control
Thank you for sharing this 💙