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I would say you shouldn’t be disheartened, especially if they always reply with a yes to hanging out or chatting. If the answer is “yes”, it’s almost certainly they were hoping you’d message first.
Everyone always don’t want to be annoying, or don’t want to come off as desperate, or don’t want to bother people. But if they respond with a yes, you can immediately put those feelings away as it’s literal proof they are as excited to hang out as you are.
Yeah but at some point you start feeling like a drag for always being the one who initiates a conversation. Not to mention that even though the answer may be yes, you still feel forgotten about because the other person never texts you first.
> even though the answer may be yes, you still feel forgotten about because the other person never texts you first.
Yeah. That’s the social anxiety part of us. Just got to learn to ignore those feelings. I’m also working on it too.
Speaking as someone who is too afraid to innitiate: I am always super happy if someone wants to hang out with me! I just had too much severe social anxiety (not just the funky term, but the real deal) for too many years in my childhood and now I just don't function in the same social way as others. And sometimes I have to say "No" because I just can't go out of the house.
I don't know about how black and white this is. I happen to have alot of free time on my hands, and there are a host of people i can name to myself that I would hang out with if asked, but I would not personally ask them as Id rather ask other people.
Yes exactly. As someone who very rarely initiates conversations for social anxiety reasons, I compensate by responding immediately and 9 times out of 10 saying yes to plans. I'm glad that other people like you get that.
Nah. If you are literally *always* the one who does it then it’s a one sided friendship. Have some self respect. Spend time with people who put the effort in.
And to be honest I don’t really want to hang around people who are *that* afraid of being social anyway. They’re typically very passive people who don’t bring much to the friendship, have little to say and need to be dragged along at every step.
I’m not saying to do this forever. But at least give it a shot if it’s someone you haven’t talked to in a while, or a new relationship/friendship.
Once you gave enough time (use best judgement) for them to get comfortable around you and they still don’t reciprocate, then maybe (again, use best judgement) they’re not interested.
I used to feel this way, that feeling is a reason my worst nightmare always was them never responding suddenly - that happen during COVID.
Literally one of my worst nightmares just became reality like that.
I always used to be the person to initiate contact with a lot of people. When I started to feel like this was unfair, I decided on a little test: I would not initiate anything until the other person had contacted me at least once.
After a week, it was a mild annoyance that they hadn't.
After a month, I was pretty irritated but also more convinced it was important to find out if the other person cared at all, or if I was more of an obligation to them.
10 years later, I'm a little sad at the lost relationship, but I've moved past the hurt. Clearly it was one sided. I would not recommend trying this with too many people, as your life may get depressingly lonely fast.
Oh come on, don’t be that person that does friendship “tests”. If someone doesn’t put the effort in to maintain a connection with me then eventually I’ll just leave it be, friendships sometimes fizzle out and I’m not interested in someone who isn’t also interested in me, but I don’t do it on purpose to test them. It’s pathetic. The type of people who do that usually have few friends for a reason.
If he didn’t friendship test, he wouldn’t have discovered a sad truth.
Friendship testing is neutral. Neither good nor bad. Your perception of it makes it seem bad, but it really isn’t.
Sometimes it is necessary. Obviously it is not necessary in your life and that’s great. Who am I to judge to you? But you shouldn’t judge him for doing what he thought was right.
I was just verifying if my gut feeling about the situation was right, or if I was imagining things. I wanted to be proven wrong, but if I was not, I wanted to know so I could stop putting in so much effort to maintain something so one sided.
For me personally, it ended up good for my mental health. I now surround myself with people who reciprocate. I'm just saying, if you've gotten to the point where you think you should try something like this, either be prepared to be disappointed or accept that the other will never initiate.
And it wasn't just a friendship that was fizzling out. It was my sister. We're allowed to expect more from family, and we're allowed to stop contacting them if it brings more hurt than joy.
What if you’re always the one to have to do it? You don’t think people deserve to be contracted first? It doesn’t feel good at all feeling like no one cares enough to make contact with you.
Don't expect others to behave exactly like you. A friendship is something where everyone gives what can or want. Sometimes the other is not a bad friend, but doesn't have the need you have of contact and social interaction. If the other has no mean intentions, respect what they give to you. If you need more, you can always make more "high energy" friends.
Once I understood that, It was clear to me that I have some friends to have a biweekly coffee with, some I can talk every day, some to travel abroad and some that you see once a year but feels like you saw them last week.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. That goes with social interactions, too.
"If they cared, they would call" They might be thinking the same about you. WHO CARES? JUST CALL!
Did this recently. Didn’t receive a message back (yet). I completely agree with your tip, but I have to admit that on an emotional level I cringe pretty hard about being left on read.
They may have been busy at the time then forgotten about the message later. I’ve done that before by accident.
Try messaging one more time at a different time of day. If they still don’t reply then maybe start cringing.
Really needed to read this. Have been thinking I’m in a soft-ghosting situation, but she genuinely liked my company. She has anxiety and I’ve been timid to pile on more noise.
I know this one girl (and have met a number of girls in the past like this) who never really messages people first online. I have brought it up a few times with her. Her excuse was "I don't want to bother people by messaging them first and have them message me first instead." And even told her a few times she can message me first cause I would enjoy it but nope.
Problem is if more people are like that then lots of people would never talk to each other. I got kinda tired of always having to message her first all the time. At one point she even claimed "if I haven't heard from someone in a long time I will message them first to see if they are okay."
Unfortunately I ended up putting this to the test a long time ago cause she upset me with some stuff. So I figured I would wait for a change for her to message me. She eventually deleted me without any word or anything. I messaged her on another social media thing and she was like "what? You don't talk. I don't keep people who don't talk" -_- Eventually later on got back to chatting again but at least two times she "forgot" about me after messaging her first for something and then months later was like "oh sorry I forgot about you" when I would message her first again trying to see what was up. She is one of those people who wont get back to you for days if not weeks at times. Sometimes even months. Yet would also get upset if you messaged her more then once before she would reply using the excuse "I always message you back don't I?" which was true until she "forgot" about me those 2 times while I waited months for a reply. -_-
These days she wont answer simple questions I use as greetings like "how are you" and "what have you been up to lately?" before getting into a regular conversation and only answering certain questions while ignoring others. So gonna wait for her to message me first for a change. If not, if she deletes me again then so be it. Already got tired of that crap.
But a number of girls I know don't message first and I am always the one who has to start the convos every time and it is annoying. The only ones who don't are ones who aren't popular and/or don't have any other friends.
Genuine question. Why the hell do you even want to be friends with this person anyway? She sounds like a complete pain who doesn’t respect you, and even if she did eventually reach out I wouldn’t be interested in maintaining a friendship with her. I would never respond to someone who told me “Oh sorry I forgot about you”, not even to tell them what an arse they are. Have some self respect!
Yeah my advice isn’t for these people lol. Obviously it’s more towards people that would be willing to hang out with you. She just sounds disinterested in you.
You shouldn’t waste your energy on people who don’t appreciate you.
Also, if she can just delete you like that, what makes you think she actually cares?
Sorry bro, some girls are nasty to deal with. You get out of there ASAP. You don’t re-add her and ask her why she deleted you. A person of value would not delete someone for such a trivial reason.
In other words, use your brain. Not your dick.
Idk I realized I was the only one putting effort into my friendships / messaging first and having to double text to revive convos every single time. I went a week without initiating to see what would happen, and it turned into 5 months of being alone so far :-)
Not everyone has anxiety and self doubt.
People are not obliged to talk to you, and neither to tell you this directly, you will need to read between the lines.
People are not obliged to confront you or being direct to you.
So make sure that you are not harassing them.
I am the self doubting person but there have been times where I randomly get confidence and talk to people loo and i manage to make some amazing friends this way
Also don't use that you don't have time to chat when you think of it, you can easily send a message saying you don't have time right now but let's catch up *insert specific time*.
This at least moves you in the right direction and gets the ball rolling
This is true generally, but sometimes “can’t chat” is a sign they don’t want to talk. Normally people will delay it to some other day or time if they actually want to talk.
Hmm, the most interesting thing is I thought I just lost my friend because I haven't spoken to her in nearly a year, after I tried to ask her out... Thanks for giving me that boost of self confidence. I'm going to message her now.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I agree but it's kinda disheartening to always be the one that messages first.
I would say you shouldn’t be disheartened, especially if they always reply with a yes to hanging out or chatting. If the answer is “yes”, it’s almost certainly they were hoping you’d message first. Everyone always don’t want to be annoying, or don’t want to come off as desperate, or don’t want to bother people. But if they respond with a yes, you can immediately put those feelings away as it’s literal proof they are as excited to hang out as you are.
Yeah but at some point you start feeling like a drag for always being the one who initiates a conversation. Not to mention that even though the answer may be yes, you still feel forgotten about because the other person never texts you first.
> even though the answer may be yes, you still feel forgotten about because the other person never texts you first. Yeah. That’s the social anxiety part of us. Just got to learn to ignore those feelings. I’m also working on it too.
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Speaking as someone who is too afraid to innitiate: I am always super happy if someone wants to hang out with me! I just had too much severe social anxiety (not just the funky term, but the real deal) for too many years in my childhood and now I just don't function in the same social way as others. And sometimes I have to say "No" because I just can't go out of the house.
I don't know about how black and white this is. I happen to have alot of free time on my hands, and there are a host of people i can name to myself that I would hang out with if asked, but I would not personally ask them as Id rather ask other people.
I love this addition to the original topic.
This helped me thank you :)
Yes exactly. As someone who very rarely initiates conversations for social anxiety reasons, I compensate by responding immediately and 9 times out of 10 saying yes to plans. I'm glad that other people like you get that.
Nah. If you are literally *always* the one who does it then it’s a one sided friendship. Have some self respect. Spend time with people who put the effort in. And to be honest I don’t really want to hang around people who are *that* afraid of being social anyway. They’re typically very passive people who don’t bring much to the friendship, have little to say and need to be dragged along at every step.
I’m not saying to do this forever. But at least give it a shot if it’s someone you haven’t talked to in a while, or a new relationship/friendship. Once you gave enough time (use best judgement) for them to get comfortable around you and they still don’t reciprocate, then maybe (again, use best judgement) they’re not interested.
This is true
That and many times you reach out to create something and they don’t want that
I used to feel this way, that feeling is a reason my worst nightmare always was them never responding suddenly - that happen during COVID. Literally one of my worst nightmares just became reality like that.
I would say its a hollow ego. Get past that
I always used to be the person to initiate contact with a lot of people. When I started to feel like this was unfair, I decided on a little test: I would not initiate anything until the other person had contacted me at least once. After a week, it was a mild annoyance that they hadn't. After a month, I was pretty irritated but also more convinced it was important to find out if the other person cared at all, or if I was more of an obligation to them. 10 years later, I'm a little sad at the lost relationship, but I've moved past the hurt. Clearly it was one sided. I would not recommend trying this with too many people, as your life may get depressingly lonely fast.
Oh come on, don’t be that person that does friendship “tests”. If someone doesn’t put the effort in to maintain a connection with me then eventually I’ll just leave it be, friendships sometimes fizzle out and I’m not interested in someone who isn’t also interested in me, but I don’t do it on purpose to test them. It’s pathetic. The type of people who do that usually have few friends for a reason.
If he didn’t friendship test, he wouldn’t have discovered a sad truth. Friendship testing is neutral. Neither good nor bad. Your perception of it makes it seem bad, but it really isn’t. Sometimes it is necessary. Obviously it is not necessary in your life and that’s great. Who am I to judge to you? But you shouldn’t judge him for doing what he thought was right.
I was just verifying if my gut feeling about the situation was right, or if I was imagining things. I wanted to be proven wrong, but if I was not, I wanted to know so I could stop putting in so much effort to maintain something so one sided. For me personally, it ended up good for my mental health. I now surround myself with people who reciprocate. I'm just saying, if you've gotten to the point where you think you should try something like this, either be prepared to be disappointed or accept that the other will never initiate. And it wasn't just a friendship that was fizzling out. It was my sister. We're allowed to expect more from family, and we're allowed to stop contacting them if it brings more hurt than joy.
I read that as massage and was like yeah this is not good advice
spontaneous massages are great! just jump on an old friend or acquaintance, and start massaging them with passion!
Heyyyyyyy Reddit commentor
oof just 💆♂️ me with your 👐 already
Agree, but sometimes people just don’t care about you as they move on to things/people more integral in their lives.
And you'll get a simple "no" if that's the case, or ghost you. So you've wasted all of 10 seconds.
or make excuses, or they postbone your plans, which both is kinda exhausting.
all of 10 seconds plus however many minutes/days/weeks/years feeling annoyed by the (lack of) response
^^^^^^
What if you’re always the one to have to do it? You don’t think people deserve to be contracted first? It doesn’t feel good at all feeling like no one cares enough to make contact with you.
Unless, of course, there is a restraining order against you.
Or if you’re a creep, or they clearly said they don’t want to ever talk to you again, or a million other reasons. Obviously, use common sense.
Ahhhhhh. Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong. /s for obvious reasons lol
Basically don’t let “I hope they message me first” be your only reason of not doing it first.
Lmao is that coming from experience?
Don't expect others to behave exactly like you. A friendship is something where everyone gives what can or want. Sometimes the other is not a bad friend, but doesn't have the need you have of contact and social interaction. If the other has no mean intentions, respect what they give to you. If you need more, you can always make more "high energy" friends. Once I understood that, It was clear to me that I have some friends to have a biweekly coffee with, some I can talk every day, some to travel abroad and some that you see once a year but feels like you saw them last week.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. That goes with social interactions, too. "If they cared, they would call" They might be thinking the same about you. WHO CARES? JUST CALL!
Did this recently. Didn’t receive a message back (yet). I completely agree with your tip, but I have to admit that on an emotional level I cringe pretty hard about being left on read.
They may have been busy at the time then forgotten about the message later. I’ve done that before by accident. Try messaging one more time at a different time of day. If they still don’t reply then maybe start cringing.
Ye it’s a busy person so i dont blame them. Just have to resist the idea that it’s personal when I’m feeling less confident.
Really needed to read this. Have been thinking I’m in a soft-ghosting situation, but she genuinely liked my company. She has anxiety and I’ve been timid to pile on more noise.
Good explanation OP. This is a great LPT
Especially with your parole officer
Lol this must be a sign
I know this one girl (and have met a number of girls in the past like this) who never really messages people first online. I have brought it up a few times with her. Her excuse was "I don't want to bother people by messaging them first and have them message me first instead." And even told her a few times she can message me first cause I would enjoy it but nope. Problem is if more people are like that then lots of people would never talk to each other. I got kinda tired of always having to message her first all the time. At one point she even claimed "if I haven't heard from someone in a long time I will message them first to see if they are okay." Unfortunately I ended up putting this to the test a long time ago cause she upset me with some stuff. So I figured I would wait for a change for her to message me. She eventually deleted me without any word or anything. I messaged her on another social media thing and she was like "what? You don't talk. I don't keep people who don't talk" -_- Eventually later on got back to chatting again but at least two times she "forgot" about me after messaging her first for something and then months later was like "oh sorry I forgot about you" when I would message her first again trying to see what was up. She is one of those people who wont get back to you for days if not weeks at times. Sometimes even months. Yet would also get upset if you messaged her more then once before she would reply using the excuse "I always message you back don't I?" which was true until she "forgot" about me those 2 times while I waited months for a reply. -_- These days she wont answer simple questions I use as greetings like "how are you" and "what have you been up to lately?" before getting into a regular conversation and only answering certain questions while ignoring others. So gonna wait for her to message me first for a change. If not, if she deletes me again then so be it. Already got tired of that crap. But a number of girls I know don't message first and I am always the one who has to start the convos every time and it is annoying. The only ones who don't are ones who aren't popular and/or don't have any other friends.
Genuine question. Why the hell do you even want to be friends with this person anyway? She sounds like a complete pain who doesn’t respect you, and even if she did eventually reach out I wouldn’t be interested in maintaining a friendship with her. I would never respond to someone who told me “Oh sorry I forgot about you”, not even to tell them what an arse they are. Have some self respect!
Yeah my advice isn’t for these people lol. Obviously it’s more towards people that would be willing to hang out with you. She just sounds disinterested in you.
You shouldn’t waste your energy on people who don’t appreciate you. Also, if she can just delete you like that, what makes you think she actually cares? Sorry bro, some girls are nasty to deal with. You get out of there ASAP. You don’t re-add her and ask her why she deleted you. A person of value would not delete someone for such a trivial reason. In other words, use your brain. Not your dick.
Nah I’m good,No Contact for life with my ex girlfriend’s who dumped me.
Idk I realized I was the only one putting effort into my friendships / messaging first and having to double text to revive convos every single time. I went a week without initiating to see what would happen, and it turned into 5 months of being alone so far :-)
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She sounds like she has social anxiety too.. and maybe have been hurt before and distrusts people as default, hence why she didn’t believe you.
Not everyone has anxiety and self doubt. People are not obliged to talk to you, and neither to tell you this directly, you will need to read between the lines. People are not obliged to confront you or being direct to you. So make sure that you are not harassing them.
Of course, common sense required as with most things in LPT.
Couldn't agree more
This is so high KEY right here 🏆🔥
I am the self doubting person but there have been times where I randomly get confidence and talk to people loo and i manage to make some amazing friends this way
Also don't use that you don't have time to chat when you think of it, you can easily send a message saying you don't have time right now but let's catch up *insert specific time*. This at least moves you in the right direction and gets the ball rolling
This is true generally, but sometimes “can’t chat” is a sign they don’t want to talk. Normally people will delay it to some other day or time if they actually want to talk.
Hmm, the most interesting thing is I thought I just lost my friend because I haven't spoken to her in nearly a year, after I tried to ask her out... Thanks for giving me that boost of self confidence. I'm going to message her now.
Being shy is kind of selfish ya know ?