Read This If You Find Yourself Waiting for a Text Back
You’re simply just not busy enough.
Fated words
You’re talking to someone new and things are seemingly going great.
You like their mind.
They look like the fantasy of your dreams (or at least close).
Your values align, for example, you both agree on whether or not to put pineapple on pizza.
Your banter is so seamless, it makes Tom Holland’s and Chris Hemsworth’s feel underwhelmingly amateur.
Essentially, you’re hitting it off quite well and your chemistry is so thick, you could literally get electrocuted by it.
Hell, it’s almost as if the stars have aligned and approved for this connection to happen.
And when it’s time to depart they say the fated words, “I’ll text you tomorrow”.
As you wait
Initially, the wait starts pretty chilled.
You’re confident that anytime now.
You’re walking with eyes that smile and lips that carry the mischievous glint of someone who knows something the rest of the world doesn’t.
However, multiple screen unlocks and an embarrassing “Is iMessage down?” status update hours to days later, they still haven’t texted you.
And in all that time, you’ve gone from fixating on whether you’ve been texted back, deciphering what it means that they haven’t texted you back, or thinking hard about what you may or may not do when they finally do decide to text you back.
It is safe to say, the sunshine mood you were in has been replaced by a partly cloudy one.
You are not okay.
But all of this makes one thing crystal: you’re simply just not busy enough.
“People aren’t ignoring you. They are busy with their lives. And the way to stop feeling ignored is to get busy with yours.”― Bestselling author, Dr. Nitya Prakash
Get busy
The truth is, a text back shouldn’t even be at the forefront of your mind.
Especially in the beginning stages of dating, there shouldn’t be a noticeable difference in your mood or daily living in whether you get texted back or not.
Essentially, what it all says is that you are bored and that you need to get occupied.
This is not to glorify hustle culture in any way.
That is to say, being “busy” does not require you to have a detailed itinerary for your day which has you having read a million books by 8 AM and having solved world hunger and climate change by lunch hour.
Being busy simply means being preoccupied with and participating in your own life.
Being busy can look like working a 9–5, getting back home afterward, and your idea of happiness being unwinding with wine and a Netflix show.
Being busy can look like being at university and being preoccupied with classes, socialising, and monetizing your hobbies.
Being busy can look like filling your days with painting, reading, writing, entrepreneurship, shopping, making tik toks, listening to music, fashion research, surfing, meditating, streaming, kicking a ball, backpacking, spring cleaning, baking, playing an instrument, coding, partying, doing makeup, or literally anything else.
The point is that your precious time is spent devoting yourself to things that grow, challenge, engage, and spark curiosity within you.
You want to get to the point where your life is so engrossing, engaging and fulfilling, there is little time to feel any little else that doesn’t align with that.
“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Former First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt
By-products, add-ons and accessories
The truth is romantic relationships, sex and hookups — especially in your early twenties — are just a by-product of living a good life.
They are just an add-on, an accessory if you will.
That is to say, there is absolutely no justification for that aspect of your life to be suffering — just move on to another better situation.
Because the truth is, there are simply way more important things to be worrying about.
There are too many skills to develop, friendships to nurture, places to visit, food to eat, and academics to study.
There are just too many things to be worrying about — least of all, a text back.
And at the very least, even if the thought of not having received a text back gets noticed, it shouldn’t consume you nor should it even be entertained by you.
If someone doesn’t text you back, put your phone down and touch some grass.
You live for yourself first, everyone else comes second.
