Judging by the amount of time I spend to check my instagram, double-tapping on good photos on my timeline, and seeing almost every insta story of people that I follow (minus those accounts that I muted), I won’t be surprised if anyone thinks that I have a lot of spare time, that I’m on my phone all the time, that I always reply to messages immediately, that I always pick up every incoming calls, or that I’m only one text or call away when you need someone to talk to. Well, it’s partly right. Sometimes I do reply to a message in a blink of the eye. But please keep in mind that sometimes I also turn off my Line notification so I don’t know I receive a new message. Sometimes I have works to do so I can’t check my phone every two minutes. And sometimes I don’t even bother to reply to an incoming message that doesn’t need an immediate answer and choose to stall to the point where I forget to reply to it.
Additional information to make everything sounds more convincing and dramatic: sometimes I don’t reply to my boyfriend’s message for a week or more. No, we’re not in a fight or anything, I still tag him on a meme. That’s purely me craving for my own personal space to breathe and for temporarily solitude. Even if you’re my boyfriend and I’m crazy about you, I still need space away from you.
Texting –and talking to people as well– can be so stressful sometimes, especially for someone who easily gets sidetracked doing other things. I often read a text, and then get distracted and forget to reply until a few hours later. If you consider that as a sign for how I am in other aspects of life, well, you’re right. My mind is constantly bouncing around. I know this behavior can cause problems. Some of my friends who don’t know me really well once thought that I ignored them. This mostly happens after seeing my last seen on whatsapp and seeing that grey check mark has changed into blue while they still left with no response, or after knowing that I liked a post on instagram. And to minimize the minunderstandings, I turned off the read receipt and last seen on my whatsapp. Gosh, I can’t believe I had to do that. Social media has unfortunately given us all sorts of reasons to be anxious about things that are probably non-issues. The reality is, you don’t have to respond to a text right away and we have a right to respond when we feel like it, right?
We tend to change a bit when we have a new partner. We try to adjust to their habits. One day, you find yourself binge-watch an entire season of Shameless because your boyfriend loves that serial (lol that’s my favorite, he’s into k-drama actually). You attempt to learn about basketball because your boyfriend happened to be a basketball player (even though I never really tried to get to know more of it as well, sorry babe). You try to reply to his text as fast as you can because he’ll double texts you, or bombard you with 20+ messages if you don’t respond within 5 minutes. You always pick up his phone calls every night to listen to his story even though you’re way too sleepy to function. To be very honest, I’ve never been that kind of person, especially the latter. I will be out of breath within the first week. Communicating continuously with someone is never my strongest suit. And constantly bugging me to reply to your texts isn’t endearing at all. It’s not going to magically transform me into a textpert, it’s just going to really really make me want to stop talking to you.
There are lots of people out there who are awesome at responding to messages in a timely manner. I’m simply not one of them. I’m a trash texter according to buzzfeed quiz that I took just now. But it’s not that I try to ignore people. I’m just forgetful and lazy, when it comes to communicating. Sometimes I don’t know what to reply. I don’t know the answer and I need more time to think of it. Every best friend, beloved family member, boyfriend, and ex-boyfriend has seen my horrible texting habits firsthand, so you’re not the first to receive a few hours of silence after sending me a message. It’s really nothing personal; it’s just who I am, and whether you consider it a flaw or a virtue, it’s a part of me you’ll have to deal with if you want to be my friend. But if you really need me, I will try my best to respond to you as fast as possible.
Nadya's Journal 