#4 - What to do when you don't get a reply

We've all be there! You're starting to date someone, things are looking promising and then comes THAT time.... that time when you're messaging someone and they suddenly stop responding the way they did before.

You want to play it cool and give them time so you don't look "crazy" or "psycho", but they could at least  let you know why they haven't answered your question.

You head to Google to search when it's okay to message again. One article says 3 days, that gives him enough time. The other says, acknowledge it within 24-48 hours if you've been texting as regularly as that anyway. And another suggests you cut your losses and run, leave it in their court - if a guy wants to see you and get to know you, he'll text you!

So you end up even more confused than you were to start with!

In this episode, Chantelle discusses why we react the way we do, the dilemma of when to text back and a way to manage your reactions to not having a guy message back,  no matter how long you've been message.

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Key Moments:

• "What to do when you don't get a reply: This is literally the bane of anybody's life when you are in the mix of trying to date or just find people to connect with."
• "It's bloody horrible. And you can't help but associate the ghosting and the non-replies to you."
• "We, as women, tend to automatically blame ourselves. We always put that on ourselves and find it very difficult to set our boundaries."
• "There's no perfect way to handle this, but you can be happy with what you continue to do and what you learn."
• "It's difficult to be assertive but polite, but it's something that you have to do, and you only get better by practicing."
• "Communication is key in all of this."
  "What’s done is done. You can worry about, 'Did I make the right or wrong choice?' Ultimately, everything happens in this life for a reason."

Transcript

Hello and welcome to The Single Girl’s Guide to Life, the next episode!

This is your weekly guide to embracing single life in your 20s and 30s, that’s going to help you navigate your single life status. I’m Chantelle the Coach, a quarter life confidence coach who helps women who are single, separated, or divorced to overcome that doubt and uncertainty and so that they can get comfortable being single and eventually, work out what they want, make decisions for themselves with confidence, and take action towards living a life they can truly thrive in.

And in today’s episode, I’m going to talk about “What to do when you don’t get a reply”. This is literally the bane of anybody’s life when you are in the mix of trying to date or just find people to connect with. This can be as simple as in friendship, but I am going to talk about it from the perspective of dating. I’m going to talk you through some of the mistakes you are making when you are awaiting that response. I’m also going to give you some tools and techniques to manage how you’re feeling in that scenario, particularly when you start to (like) freak out and act in a way that you wouldn’t expect of yourself, if you weren’t feeling so triggered by this. And so, that’s what I am going to go through in this episode and what you can look forward to and take away from it by the end.

Now, the reason we are talking about this today is because I know this happens a lot to people, and having not experienced the dating scene before as an adult, and only kinda hearing stories about this sort of thing happening, I never really truly knew what the experience of it was. Obviously, I’ve heard the term “ghosting” and knew what that meant in terms of just going, but I hadn’t experienced how it actually made you feel when you get ghosted. And quite frankly, it’s bloody horrible. And you can’t help but associate the ghosting and the non-replies to you. Whilst you should try to avoid doing that, you would be better off not to, and we’ll get into that later. But at the time, and at the start when you’re going into these dating apps, which if you’ve been with someone for a long time and you are now revisiting or visiting them for the first time, it’s a bit of a shock to the system. And no wonder, we’ve become desensitised to people not responding, people not being there for us, and not relying on people. 

Whilst this is a strong extension, I would still expect your friends to reply to you, even if it is delayed. Hands up, I have left friends on read, while my read receipts were turned on for that very reason, but I have definitely left friends for many a long time, which is bad to admit. However, I would get back to them. There’s this element with dating where it becomes more sensitive. It seems more personal because, actually, it matters. You feel like it’s something about you. What did you do that meant that they’re now not replying? Now, let’s not get too carried away. Let’s really look into the scenario. If you’ve just matched with someone, you’ve started with just a few exchanges, and then they go? In some respects, that’s just sensing the vibe and not needing to take much action on it. Yeah, it’s still naff, if I were still… I would prefer to be disconnected with or unmatched than I would to be left on read or just it be left. But sometimes, people get distracted. There are genuine reasons why that happens.

The scenario that I’m talking about today is more to do with when you have been starting to speak to someone a little bit more. Maybe you’ve moved off of the app, and you’re now on WhatsApp or texting, voice-noting even, and maybe you’ve even had a couple of video dates, I don’t know. But, there’s a little more commitment than there was when it was just on the app still. Maybe you’ve even had a date or two, and there’s just a change. I think that’s what I’m really digging into today is this, the change in the tone and it’s been, let’s say a week, a couple of weeks, three weeks, it depends how quickly you move and the effect of it is. But this can come up at any point, when you aren’t in anything that’s got a label. Even then, this can still happen when you have got a label. But, it’s those feelings that come up and we, as women, tend to automatically blame ourselves. We always put that on ourselves and we then also find it very difficult to set our boundaries with ourselves because that’s uncomfortable. That’s difficult to carry out. It causes discomfort probably on our ends because we're not really used to that, and it feels like we're being a pain, and we're gonna need to embrace some of that in order to address what’s really going on here. 

Now, my experience of this was very new. Having come out of a six to seven year relationship, apps, I don’t believe were around when I first started dating. They were a new entity. There were dating websites but I don’t believe there were apps. Maybe there were and they were like, early days. I don’t know how long Tinder’s been around for, for example. However, I have never had to use them. When you are a teenager, you have school, you have college, university, house parties, many of them, where you’re meeting tons of people. You don’t necessarily need those apps per se. So this was the first time I had used them, and boy did I get the use of them wrong in that sense. Something I’ve referred to in previous episodes. But I also got the whole dating thing wrong too including this very problem. And it is something that I’ve had to one, get used to, which is where I talk about that kind of desensitisation. I can understand why we get to that. We almost do become numb. It becomes part of the process and I don’t actually agree that somebody not replying is an okay thing to do. As I have already admitted, I have done it before. However, I’ve become aware of that and have definitely been trying not to do it, even though it is really hard to sometimes say, “Look, this isn’t really working out.” and I almost can’t say why, like just a vibe? A feeling? That can be as simple as it is sometimes, you know when you just know? And sometimes, that’s really hard to communicate and you do need to bring it back to how you feel, without trying to put blame on someone, because it’s such early days, you don’t want to change anyone through this process. You want them to be them, you don’t want them to be having to alter tiny little things about themselves to fit your exact ideal because that’s not what it is about. It’s about accepting each other as you are. It’s different if you have an established thing, and it’s been going a long time, there’s just something that’s come up or changed that, you know, really hits a nerve. But when you’re just dating? When you’re starting to get to know someone? You shouldn’t be looking at trying to change them or alter how they really behave then. There’s got to be that natural click. 

So whilst you want to be nice about it, you do have to cut somebody off, and they have high hopes. And you too are on the receiving end of that when it happens to you. However, the problem is, is that some people don’t communicate it. We haven’t communicated it before. I’m sure there’s been times where you just left a message and never got back to it. All good intention to it, but at some point you say something, get caught up, and then it becomes too late. And that’s exactly what’s happening on the other end, but for some reason when it’s happening to you it doesn’t feel quite the same.

And I’m just gonna go through a little experience of what happened in some scenarios of this, so that we could put things into perspective, look at the elements that were right, or that felt right in that situation. And what things that I’ve improved on since, or what I’ve learned from that experience and how you too can take that forward. So, months ago, I was speaking to people. I was on some apps and I found myself talking to two people at a time. And that wasn’t a problem. That’s something that I promote that you do. You continue to talk to people all the time because then if things drop off, because you just don't know what's gonna happen. Everybody’s lives are busy. You’re still talking to a couple of people. You could then continue with any of the others. There’s no reason that you should have to limit yourself for very very early on. But essentially, I was talking to this one person and we made arrangements to probably look at meeting at the weekend, which was fab. And we’d had a video call and we had been voice-noting and messaging. So that’s where things were at. And then something happened to stop the Sunday, so I was like “Okay yeah, no worries, no problem”. But then, from that point on, it seemed there had been some distance. 

So, I gave a message and just said, “Oh hey, how’s everything going?” and I felt that it was like some delays to responses, in comparison to what there had been before, and you could sense that kind of difference. And then, it was just being ignored. So I didn’t push for itbut it was ignored then there was a question within it. And at that point, I’d gone through a series of these things happening and I’d had that kind of transition to, “Well, I’m not gonna let this happen”, and I said, you know, “Is everything okay? There seems to have been a bit of a change”. I was kind of talking about it head on with this person. They then opened up a bit and said, “Look, no, actually, my ex just got back in touch. I’d like to still speak to them, or see what happens with them, and then go from there, really.” And I’m cool with that. When you’ve been speaking to someone for a week or two, that’s not going to be something that’s gonna offend me massively. Actually, I much prefer the communication. I like that openness that you know what’s going on and it’s, like, cool. But there had been something in the message that had implied that we would reconnect at some point, or possibly, like stay in touch. So I’d ask the question back of “okay, what does that kind of look like to you?”. And that was when there was the no response beyond that, and I was like, “ That’s not okay. That’s just rude.” You can say that you’re going to go and pursue somebody else, no problem, or see how that goes. But then, you’ve left it a bit weirdly open, I don’t know why, and I’ve asked you a question to clarify. I believe it was something I listened to, and I’m pretty sure it was Matthew Hussey who said, “It is your job, it is your responsibility to seek clarity on any kind of relationship.” And so, I was trying to seek some clarity. I was trying to just establish what was happening here and where the shift had gone. Having already not had a few messages, or had been slower, I then wasn’t so taken with this idea of now being left. And I could see that they were online, unknowingly, and when they’d been online sort of thing. So, I then decided to basically, just stop it there, and just not let the option be taken away from me of what we were meant to do because at that point, I realized that I was being triggered emotionally by someone who was not responding. And you could say “that’s needy”, or “that’s too much”, but ultimately, I have a very good texting game, in general. I am consistent. Okay, yeah I have days, I told you earlier, I definitely have left people on read for a long period of time, before. I’m not perfect. However, I do have conversations with people and they kinda naturally end. But I’m good with the back and forth and engaged in that way with people. So to have had a little bit in the neck to go, I was like, “This isn’t okay”, so we were voice-noting and messaging, so I left a… It’s difficult to be assertive but polite but it's something that you have to do and you only get better by practicing. So I believe, I said something along the lines of, “Look, it’s been really nice to chat. I’m not really sure what’s going on. I appreciate somebody that can communicate and just, you know, settle things and it doesn’t seem like that’s happening here. Wishing you all the best.” Doesn’t everyone end their messages with “all the best”, when they’ve got to end them? And I left it. And as I said, I was speaking to another person. Probably still on the other apps as well at that point. I hadn’t stopped there, I’ve always had the apps on there.  Even though now I don’t kind of actively seek that out and continue to talk to the other person. And then person number one came back, and that was a week or so later. Maybe a little bit longer. And he came back with a voice note and they were coughing and splattering in the background, and it turned out they’ve been very ill, and in the hospital with said virus that is amongst us at the moment. And you could imagine the kind of guilt of like, “Oh God”, pressured someone maybe to answer when they were really ill. Like the kind of thing that you try to rationalize with like “Oh maybe this has happened”, and you get extreme with it, had actually happened. And I couldn’t have felt more like an idiot when I did it, because you don’t expect that to happen. You sometimes say it because well it is a possibility, you know? Maybe they just got busy, or maybe something’s happened to them. It’s not really one of the things that I ever thought would be a reality. But it was, and so I kind of took this through with me as a kind of lesson that you don’t know what’s going on with anybody at all, so I kept that whilst I was then talking to person number two. 

However, a few weeks later and person number two and I have been talking in a very similar way. In voice notes usually, and messages, but that changed. There was a significant change. I don’t know if anybody else is as sensitive to a change in a tone or in an exchange as me, but I can tell, like a sixth sense. Let me know if you get that too. I could tell that there was a change in the communication and so this time though, instead of addressing it head on and seeking that clarity that I kind of expected of myself before, I was like, “Maybe they’re just busy”. But I was going through the same kind of feelings and turmoil which goes back to other things, that’s a whole other issue in itself, and something to kind of examine, and look out, which is what I have done. But let’s just stick with the story of what you do in that moment. But I’d left it, and I was trying to do certain things. I had a counseling session at the time where I tried to unpick some of that, and it was so challenging. It was so frustrating and part of it is because if you’re sensing it and that’s because someone’s pulling away, then that’s arguably, someone disconnecting with you, someone moving away from you. If we go back to all the years back to like tribe times - cavemen, and things like that. You have to be in a tribe to survive. You have to. You have to have connections. So there’s an inherent fear there, but that’s probably accelerated by the things, but that’s what that’s threatening. That’s why your body goes into potentially different reaction modes there. So, I was trying to manage those myself, because you shouldn’t always have to rely on somebody else replying and, goodness, why would you want to condition yourself to believe that you will then be okay when someone messages you back? What a pickle will you get yourself into if that’s what you rely on. And then, yeah, this person didn’t really say a lot until I did address it. It got to a point, I think I’d left it for, we were sort of messaging, but not the way we had done for maybe five, six, seven days or so. And, yeah, there was definitely a change. And eventually, I did address it head on, but I put myself through so much turmoil in that. And it had just turned out that they just had a bit of a change of heart, and I would argue that maybe they didn’t know how to speak about that. They didn’t know how to say it. So, what should I have done in either of those scenarios? What should you do, if you find yourself in those scenarios? Because in one case addressing it appeared to make it worse, and in the second version, leaving it still felt bad, or did that make it worse. I was, for days, I was in those feelings. In the first one, I had sought clarity, and whilst it meant that it felt embarrassing later on when they had been ill, I had managed to free myself of that turmoil and that emotion. So where does this sit? This is why this is so difficult. Because you’ve got so many different things at play. Firstly, you’ve got another person, who has emotions and feelings, thoughts and behaviors. They also have their own life and they can get ill within that life too.

You then have your feelings and your needs, your thoughts and your behaviors as well, and it's so very hard to know. Ultimately, communication is key. And so therefore, when you’re thinking about responding, you have to think about how to communicate this. So what do you do here? Now, I’m not gonna tell you when you should contact someone to respond. You have to stay in tune with your body. In the second scenario, I wasn’t doing that. I was denying myself of how I felt, because I was trying to see if it was better to do it in a way that didn’t make such assumptions. So maybe I left it too long this time? Maybe I left it on to the other person for too long. And it’s all about learning. There’s no perfect to this, but you could be happy with what you continue to do with and what you learn. So neither of them are inherently wrong, but not either of them were completely beneficial. 

However, you’ve got to think of a couple of things whenever you’re thinking about making your decision. So the first thing is “how long do I reasonably give this?” So in the first scenario, I had responded fairly quickly, and in the second scenario, I’d left it for days, about a week, and it had not worked out. So probably somewhere in between a day to seven days is gonna be reasonable for me because somewhere along the line that’s getting worse and worse and worse for me. Whereas I didn’t feel that bad after I had sent the message to the first person. But had felt that guilt based on what really happened to them. 

So then it’s not just also a time thing, but it’s also about what you say. So, in the first scenario, I was very quick to be like, “you aren’t going to have the opportunity to take this away from me, and to what is effectively, not respond.” Now ultimately, I cannot control anybody else, and that’s a very hard thing to let go of in our world when our brain seeks certainty, and relationships and dating are so uncertain. Our brain wants to know what’s going to happen, you seek it out, and you get worried. That’s probably what we would call anxiety. When you start to worry about something that you can’t actually control. And it’s that person’s right not to reply. I completely respect that. However, if you have been talking, it can only come across as a little bit rude. It takes two seconds just to say this, that and the other. And if you are pushing over two or three days, that seems reasonable to me. And everybody's gonna have a different opinion on this, and I’m not here to tell you what days you should and shouldn’t do this at. I’ve got a little structure for you, in a bit, to listen to, in terms of how you make that decision for yourself and what you do following this. However, there is a cut off point. There is a point to which you need to say, “This is unacceptable”, and that’s gonna come down to you. Because I do expect somebody to let me know if something’s gone wrong, you know? Yeah, we’ve only been chatting a bit, but actually just two second, I’m really unwell, I’ll get back to you. All it takes, all it takes. And some people say, that’s… you shouldn’t have expected that. Everyone is gonna have an opinion on this massively. But at the end of the day, that’s something that I do expect, from everybody - friends, family, anybody that I’m starting to connect with in whatever way, is that you can be respectful and courteous by explaining something’s happening, even if it’s like as brief as in that moment. And that person is also not wrong to choose not to reply if there’s something as serious as that happening. There are going to be different people in this world that have different expectations of one another and what happens, and that’s how you work out if someone is a good match for you or not. It is not a bad thing to have discovered that you don’t have the same communication style, you don’t have the same expectation levels, that you would have done things differently to that person, but you have got to find somebody that fits. 

Back to the point of what to do when you don’t get a response. What I want you to do do is think about this kind of framework. Because what you often get told when this happens is, well… If you Google it, there are a couple of things. So some people would say that, if I don’t get a response, you should never reply anyway, because that person was clearly not interested in you, and doesn’t deserve the time of the day. I fully appreciate that perspective. That is empowering and wonderful. However, it does not solve this issue of everybody ghosting everybody. I have a little bit more righteousness about myself and opinion on this, and so I don’t think ghosting is an acceptable thing to do. I think there should be an element of communicating fairly that I’d really expect somebody to reply to me if there’s been a question, or I really appreciate it when someone can communicate to me what’s going on. It doesn’t have to be called out as ghosting. It doesn’t have to come across as aggressive. But I’m looking for someone that can keep communication consistent. That’s the kind of wording I would go for there to address what the problem is. Communication is key in all of this. And so if someone is not communicating efficiently, having already communicated well enough, then yeah, I will make the call. However, you don’t have to do that. You could just say, “I’ve sensed this. I’m really looking for someone like that. Is that something you can do?” There are examples of ways of doing it. But again, this is a personal choice. Some of you will be like, “I don’t like the drama, I don’t want a discussion. I’m just gonna leave things as they are.” Or you may want to cut it off very quickly and be like “Nope. Well if they’re not responding, I’m gonna tell them that’s not okay.” Cool. I continue to work between these two things to try to find the sweet spot of how to communicate it, but actually may be communicate it before you cut it off entirely. I’ve been noticing this, and I’m looking for that, and as previously said, is that something that you’ve noticed as well? Or do you have any thoughts on that? How can we work on this? But again, if we work on this, almost presumes that there’s a we, and that sort of pressure of togetherness when it’s very early day. So you’ve got this element of things, I’d really like to see if this is something we could work on. Your choice. Three different ways to do that. 

But in order to decide how to do that, I want you to consider the three Rs for this. Rather than distracting yourself, because a lot of people tell you that, you should leave your phone at home, go and do something, and just wait because that’s great when you then return home, and they still haven’t responded and you’re even more stressed than you were before. You know, those things don’t actually help you process what’s going on. We're not gonna deny ourselves of how we feel in this moment, but instead, you’re gonna follow these three R’s to work through them. So the first thing you’re going to do is react, and your phone is gonna be nowhere near you. As you start to realize that this person has not responded as quickly as you would’ve liked, or that they’ve been online and haven’t responded, you’re gonna get rid of that phone and you’re going to react. You are entitled to feel the things that you feel. However, if it’s anger, upset, if it’s any kind of emotional trigger. It’s not gonna end well if you try and write a message then. By all means, put something in the notes of what you would’ve sent if you could’ve, but do not copy and paste it and let it go anywhere. If you’re gonna do anything, go and journal it out. There’s something about needing to acknowledge how you’re feeling. This is not their fault. They are not to blame. Their action is associated with your reaction, and then your reaction is then within something that you need to look at and address. And there’s different reasons as to why that’s happening. I mentioned that already. That’s something else to look at another time, but that’s what’s happening in the moment. You’re reacting, and therefore you need to just take a pause to have that reaction. And once, you’ve got that out… and also, name it if you can. “ I am angry that this person hasn’t responded”. Some people might think that’s extreme, that might just be you. “I’m so upset about this.” Name it. And then try to explain to yourself why. Why are you upset? Well, because they are not replying. Well, why are you upset that they are not replying? It means they don’t like me. Why does it mean that they don’t like you if they are not replying? And keep digging on that with, “does it really mean that? Is that the truth?” And just start to get all of the feelings out, all of the thoughts, and all of the concerns. 

And then what I want you to do is reflect. Take a deep breath and reflect on what really is going on here. How long has it really been since they responded? Do you have information that tells you that they are preoccupied? And you know, there is an element of relationships do ebb and flow. So some of this may be a part of the natural thing. But don’t sit there and rationalize with so many different things. “Well they could be doing this. They could be doing that. They could be there. They could be here. They could be that. Or are they okay?”. Don’t get into, and I technically, realistically played out. But it’s this idea of bringing it back to you. Once, you’ve reflected on that. What do you really need in this moment? And it is not a response from that person, just to confirm. What are you really seeking right now? And what’s really going on for you. 

And then you need to reframe. You need to decide how you’re going to move forward with this. So there were kind of those three options of, and you could depend on what time, you could say, “right well, let’s see how I feel in the next 24 hours. I might respond later then see, but actually, you know, what do I really want? Why is this happening? Do I want someone that doesn’t keep me up to date? Am I willing to wait and see what they have to say, if anything at all? Do I feel it’s necessary to explain to them that I’m looking for consistent communication?” These are the choices that you get to make because you get to set the boundary of who gets your time and attention and who doesn’t. And so some of you are gonna be very carefree and this won’t even necessarily occur. But for a number of people, I know, because if you look on Google. You don’t even have to put a couple of searches in. You would see that people actually ask questions about this, because it's so much of a problem. You know? It’s in magazines because people want advice on when they should and shouldn’t reply. If they don’t reply then you should leave it, because they are clearly not interested. If you seem too needy, you’re going to push them away. There is an element of, if you predict it too soon then you’d react in a particularly strong way that is going to push them away. But at the same time, being needy just means that your needs aren’t being met, and everybody has needs, and maybe that person is just not the right match for you. But how you actually go about it depends on what you care about. To me, it is important that I express that communication is key because I don’t believe ghosting is right for anybody to do, and it shouldn’t be addressed head on. Otherwise, we normalize it. We let it happen, and continue on in that way. But for you, you might go, “I really want to just be able to let go of all of this. I’m so caught up in it, I hold on to it so tightly, but actually my next best step is to learn how to let go of it quicker, and not care about it so much.” And what you can do is you can see how long it takes you to let go. You could still end it and say your peace. “It’s been really nice to chat to you, I hope everything’s okay”. You know, you can do that after you try to say “Hey, how’s things going? I haven’t heard from you.” But, ultimately, you can put an end to it, if you want, cherry on top. Or you can just accept that the conversation never continued after that, and just look to work within yourself. But it’s up to you how you do it. And that’s the structure of React, Reflect, Reframe. So the reaction is what’s going on for me now. I’m getting it all out. Reflect is what’s really happening, centering yourself onto you. And then the reframe is how you’re going to reframe this going forwards, and what are you going to follow in terms of what you believe in and what you want to do. 

So that is the next episode of The Single Girl’s Guide to Life and what to do when you don’t get a reply. I hope you’ve enjoyed that little tale there of the various exchanges that I’ve had in experiences and I’m hoping that they echo with you even if your people and stories weren’t quite the same. You can imagine that and remember that happening when you’re in your dating phase. You might’ve phased out of that by now because it was too traumatic or if you’ve decided to go back in. It’s all about learning how to manage it, how to communicate. Sometimes, I’m still too quick to end it. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go through the feelings of leaving it. But again, am I seeking too much control on certainty, rather than letting some things be, or would I be better off to communicate and thus let it play out, a little bit more rather than ending it and closing it off as quickly as that. And they’re the kind of things you’d want to think about too. What do you really want? It’s all about learning. What’s done is done. You can worry about, “Did I make the right or wrong choice?”. Ultimately, everything happens in this life for a reason. Cliché, I know, but ultimately, you’re just gonna be learning and just getting better each time so instantly after, you know if you’ve left it too long. You know if maybe you’ve been a bit brash. There’s no need to go backwards though, unless you really feel you need to. But instead, just think about what can I learn from that, and what am I gonna try and do next time, if this starts happening.

If there are things that resonated with you today, I would love to hear from you, so head on over to @chantellethecoach to share with me anything that you’d like, in your DM’s, your thoughts, your reactions, because this one’s going to be on people who’ve got an opinion on here, or stories. If you got some interesting stories about ghosting, or tales of why they’d ghost when they appeared three months later again. I don’t quite have that one yet, but let me know if you have anything like that. I would love to hear it, and to know what you do when you don’t get a response to a message. 

But until next time, keep thriving!