Why He Doesn’t Text You Back

It’s not that he’s actively ignoring you (he’s not a girl). It’s not that he’s talking to some side chick. It’s also not because he’s playing games with you and never wants to talk to you again.

The relationship is established — you’re not some random girl he met at the club last night. You’re also not some swipe right from five minutes ago. You’re a girl he’s taken the time to get to know, i.e. you talk, you hang out and you have a brief rundown on his day-to-day life (his job, his dog’s name, his roommate’s annoying habits etc.). He more or less knows the same about you. You and him have been working on something for a little while and though you may not be dating and there may not be a gold seal on the relationship yet, it’s safe to say that you guys care about each other.

“Does he really care about me?” you may ask. “How do you know he even thinks about me?” The truth is, I don’t know, but you do. Think about your last conversation with the man in question. Now the last five conversations. Now the past month, or the past five months. If you didn’t mean something to him, he wouldn’t waste his time. That extra five minutes he spends texting you, is five minutes he’s taking away from himself. Men are career focused and driven by success — they’re not waiting around their phones for you to say “Hi” all day. Several experts have said that men who are still figuring out their careers will constantly be job focused and work oriented. Men don’t want to settle down until they have a clear direction for themselves and are one-hundred-percent certain they are going to be successful.

Now that you’re aware of how much he cares about you — texting you was a higher priority than his job — why didn’t he text you back?

Multitasking is bad — Read any article on Medium about productivity and you’ll understand why. When a person multitasks, productivity dwindles and almost grinds to a complete halt. Doing eighteen stupid things does not equal doing one amazing thing. Experts say it takes twenty minutes for a person to refocus on the original task at hand when they have been distracted and pulled away by something else (social media, e-mail, texting). If you were engulfed by something interesting, thought-provoking and intense, the last thing you’d want to do is hear a DING DING from your smartphone. You would want to be engaged completely, uninterrupted. That’s why when you’re having a conversation with someone you care about, watching Game of Thrones, or on the world’s tallest roller coaster, you’re not checking how many likes your last IG photo received.

Consequently, the same goes for him. If he’s not texting you every second of the day, he’s probably doing something important like his job, talking to his mom, playing sports, etc. It’s not that you’re not also important to him — because remember, he cares about you — it’s just that being on a smartphone isn’t as important as scoring the winning goal for his soccer team or catching up on the never ending saga of how his mom’s boss is a total dick.

“But what if he’s actually ignoring me?” Chances are that he’s not. If you’re in something established, like we already determined, he has a routine that you’ve probably broken. He went from: waking up, getting ready, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, doing him things, and going to bed to… waking up, texting a girl (+20), going to work, texting a girl at work (+20)(+20)(+20), coming home, texting a girl at home (+20)(+20)(+20), eating dinner, showing a girl what was for dinner (+20), doing him things, texting a girl about him things (+20), going to bed, texting a girl about going to bed (+20). Routines are something that we all have, and we all have them for a reason. The routine he was used to before you was simple and probably uninteresting, but also it was probably extremely productive. Again, back to multitasking — if it takes him twenty extra minutes to get refocused on every single task he’s been interrupted doing, imagine how much time that is summed up in a day, or a week, or a month. This time is very important. By removing one or two of the times he’s been texting you, he gains forty minutes of productivity. That’s like, an entire episode of Grey’s Anatomy. All he’s trying to do is get back to his normal routine, with the addition of you in it. So no, he might not be texting you ask much as he did on the first week you met, but mark my words — He. Will. Still. Text. You.

“What if he’s talking to another girl?” As women, why do we even ask this? The answer is: insecurities, bad past relationships, trust issues etc. Even men wonder if we, as women, are talking to other guys on the side as well. It’s perfectly natural to be insecure sometimes, but also, completely irrational. Your established pseudo-relationship is built on trust, even though it might not be a “boyfriend-girlfriend” situation. Can you imagine how exhausting it must be to text two women at once? As an adult, having my phone “blow up” like it did in high school over petty gossip is definitely not something I want to see in my future. Sometimes it takes me an hour to reply to one of my friends’ texts, let alone five. Look at the productivity aspect again (texting two women at once is forty minutes of productivity lost every time he responds), and now look at how much he cares about you (it’s been five months and he’s still talking to you) — the clear, logical, rational answer is that no, he is not texting anyone else. Don’t let anyone Inception that idea in your head ever again unless there are clear signs of two-timing and some amount of factual evidence to substantiate your claim.

“Is he playing mind games with me?” “Why won’t he text me first?” Again, he is not a malicious person and you guys didn’t just meet last night. There is no Barney Stinson whispering in his ear to wait until the next day to reply.

He doesn’t care who texts first or who texted last. Chances are, he’s not even thinking about it, he’s just a busy adult person. As women, we tend to over think, overanalyze and basically kill ourselves over little things. It’s just the way we’re hardwired. We don’t mean to, it’s just that we have a hard time understanding what men are thinking, which leads to stupid assumptions, incorrect conclusions and just a breakdown in communication overall.

Assume that he isn’t playing mind games with you, he’s not mad at you, he’s not ignoring you and he’s not trying to get rid of you. There is no proof, no evidence and nothing pointing to any of these things, much like wondering if he has a side chick. Stop worrying about the things that don’t need to be worried about. Also, he might not text you first because he’s worried about looking desperate or needy — guys, like us girls, like to be validated and wanted too.

“What if he’s just not into me anymore?” Where is the evidence? I cannot stress this enough — your mind will play games with itself if you let it. Have there been any warning signs, red flags or giant posters saying I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU ANYMORE anywhere? If there have been, then go ahead and call him out on it, but first make sure they are legitimate. Communicate with him your feelings if they are substantiated and logical. If there haven’t been, then take a deep breath, exhale, and stop thinking about that. We have already established that he cares about you enough to still be talking to you, and though there may not be as many snappy, on the second replies as there used to be, he is still invested and enjoys your company. If he really is as busy as you know he is, he’s still into you, he’s just into his job a little more. Or he’s into his soccer game. Or he’s into the new season of Narcos. Just remember — he is still talking to you, and only you. You are still a major part of his life, even if he hates to admit it.

“How do we start talking more again?” “How do I get him to text me more?” Unfortunately, I don’t have the answers for these questions. My recommendation would be to see him in person and converse that way, suggest talking on the phone or maybe attending one of his games. You’re not really his girlfriend, but it never hurts to try.

The idea of “whole-assing one thing” comes into play here. Think of the quality of conversations that you have with your man over text, not the quantity. Do they consist of single words, random emojis and a whole lot of “Hey whats up” or “What are you doing”s? If not, then carry on with your deep texting. If so, you guys might benefit from a coffee date, or grabbing lunch. Also, wouldn’t you rather not be categorized as one of the nineteen stupid things he’s doing whilst attempting to multitask at work?

From experience, having a fulfilling conversation on a deeper emotional level that is only thirty minutes is much more satisfying than sending emojis back and forth for twelve hours. In terms of relationship building and getting to know someone, quality is always better than quantity because it gives you something to look back on. It also gives you greater insight into the person you’re actually talking to, therefore making you someone he can confide in and share himself with. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that you learn nothing about a person through an emoji war (other than the fact that his favourite emoji is the purple smiley devil and the peach). If you can’t meet up with him in person any time soon, take a step back for a while and remind yourself of why you guys even started talking in the first place, and remind yourself of your importance to him. Don’t have a mental breakdown and freak out about the radio silence, but instead, take the time for yourself. If he’s busy, remind yourself that you’re definitely busy too.

In summation, he’s not texting you back for a lot of reasons, and they’re not about you in the slightest. This man cares about you enough to have made you a part of his life and he’s included you in his day-to-day routines. He’s got priorities and you are one of them. You may not be his number one at this very moment, but you’re on the ever growing list of things he cares about. Yes, it would be nice and dandy to have him text back right away, but life happens between what we do on our smartphones. He’s not not texting you because he’s a horrible person or because he’s ignoring you purposefully. He’s not “losing feelings” or “trying to get rid of you” like your mind would suggest. He’s just going about his own life and trying to include you the only way he knows how. If that’s not enough for you, then maybe he’s not the right guy.